


The Resistance

by cousinrayray



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Drama, Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, Fisting, Humor, Incest, Intercrural Sex, It's basically sex drama and space ya'll, M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Space Adventure, and some sci fi themes, can't believe I forgot about the fisting, like a lotta drama, sex instead of talking about problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-07 18:36:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cousinrayray/pseuds/cousinrayray
Summary: Busted by Beth and fed up with it all, Rick and Morty decide to pull up stakes and bail into space. But the effects of President Morty’s dictatorship are far-reaching, and frankly, a huge cramp in the space-desperado lifestyle. So… why not try to assassinate him? Sounds a lot easier than trying to figure out what to do with each other.An adventure-tinted tale about finding home, with a gratuitous amount of smut. Inspired by the Muse album “The Resistance”.





	1. Uprising

**Author's Note:**

> Hello folks! I'm so excited to be back with you all to share this pipe dream-made-reality of mine. So many thanks to KlaxAddict and Klei for organizing the 2018 Rick and Morty Big Bang. They're really awesome people, guys, a delight to know. And they managed to motivate me enough to finish this doozy!
> 
> I am obsessed with this Muse album. I cannot lie. I listened to it for the nth time one day and the plot of this fic practically wrote itself. Each chapter corresponds to its track listing, because I am a huge dork. I tend to imagine the songs as Rick's POV on it all, again, because I am a huge dork. 
> 
> But even if you hate Muse (or all music. gasp!) never fear! Because it's really just a story, no lyrics floating around, like most of my "songfic". Just sit back and enjoy. 
> 
> ALSO! THERE IS ART. This is the Big Bang motherfuckers, this ain't a drill. I had the honor of being paired with the incredibly talented Sandwich (of morty-sandwich.tumblr.com) who has created two amazing illustrations for later chapters. So stay tuned!
> 
> Thank you to all who have helped me with this project. In particular Left-Handed-Rick has faithfully reviewed and spitballed with me with every part of this, and I couldn't have done it without them. 
> 
> Enjoy folks, and thank you.

Blood was still pumping fast through his body as Morty grinned in triumph. “We left those fuckers in the dust, huh, Rick?”

“Well if by ‘we’ you mean _I_ , then sure, Morty, yeah, we did a great job saving the merch, piloting the fuck outta there, dodging bad guys and- and laser cannons like a fucking rebel fighter pilot. Only, you know, e-except a million times better than those clowns.”

Rick said this all with biting enthusiasm, the way his sarcasm always was when he was in a good mood, hand waving back and forth dramatically as his foot punched down on the accelerator and the ship shot forward. He rolled his eyes and continued, “ _We_ really took the cake on this one, Morty, while _you_ just sort of- you know, sat there uselessly in the passenger seat bein’- being full of _joie de vivre_ , or whatever the hell it is you do.” 

“Hey now,” Morty protested with faux annoyance, lounging back in his chair. “I- I killed like seven dudes back there, Rick, gimme a break.” He couldn't help the doped smile on his face. Being alive at the end always felt so good. 

He batted his eyes at his grandfather. “Tell me more things in French,” he said slyly, mouth quirking.

Rick snorted, his eyebrow raising as he made a big show of looking Morty over with contempt. “Way to be a lame little- little gaywad, Morty. You're- you get off on fucking lame-ass French, now?”

“Not really, just, just wanted to fuck with you a bit. Speaking of which…” He trailed off with a suggestive brow raise and tilt to his head. 

“Oh god,” Rick groaned as if pained, clutching his stomach. “That was worse than French. You're- you’re just terrible, Morty, terrible at seduction, terrible at most things. Just terrible.” He took a healthy swallow from his flask and turned his eyes forward again, as if to ignore Morty entirely as punishment for being so terrible. 

Morty snickered and climbed down off his seat. He crawled into the small space between Rick's chair and the console and knelt between the man’s knees. His fingers managed to unfastened Rick's belt buckle and slide down his pants, something of a feat to accomplish in his cramped position. 

“Gettin’ kinda tight down here, Rick. Guess I must have- must have grown since last time. P-pretty soon I'll be too big to fit down in this spot.” He smiled between the pale legs, looking up through his lashes at Rick. 

“God, you're a little weirdo,” Rick muttered, hand pressing down on Morty's head as he leaned in and swallowed him. 

 

The blowjob worked excellently in that it drove Rick into a slow, aggravated boil by the time they made it home. Morty skittered away from his grandfather and got back to his seat as they landed in the early morning quietness of the garage, shooting a shit-eating grin at the scowl that was sent towards him when Rick was forced to awkwardly cram his own saliva-damp erection back into his pants before exiting the ship. 

Rick tried to play it cool as they both exited the ship, straightening his coat and looking like he was preparing to stride off somewhere, but Morty was having none of it and scampered over to Rick’s side to tug him down into a wet kiss. He knew that Rick probably laughed at these little plays for power and attention. But, well, Rick always saw through everything, anyways, and at least Rick didn't laugh at him during sex. Well, not always, at least. 

And indeed, Rick acquiesced to Morty attacking his mouth with nothing more than a soft snort and an eyeroll, before bringing a hand up to tilt Morty’s chin upwards with spindly fingers. Morty hummed, pleased at the almost romantic gesture, when it was suddenly aborted, Rick stiffening against him before shoving him away. 

The low noise coming from the door to the house told him immediately why. 

Morty spun around to see his mother slumped in the doorway, pale and wide-eyed with a look of pained shock and nausea in her face. Gutted, that was it. His head shot back to send a desperate look at Rick, doing his best to block out the choked “Oh god, oh my, oh my god”’s that were getting increasingly audible behind him. 

“Jesus f-fucking Christ, Rick, any fucking second now,” he hissed between his teeth as Rick fumbled for the memory gun, shutting his eyes at the sound of the “Oh gods”s dissolving into cracked sobbing. 

As long as she didn't try to move or go anywhere before Rick got his fucking shit together this would be fine. It sucked ass and was to be avoided, of course, but it was always fine. There was, however, a small chance of her attacking them or herself, not to mention darting away, so when he heard a scuffling sound he turned back hastily towards his mother. 

It was just her slumping fully towards the floor, Rubbermaid containers scattering out of her arms. God knows what she was trying to do with them at 3 am, Morty thought bleakly as he watched a lid spin circles before falling over. 

Rick finally figured his shit out with the gun and hustled over, making low, senseless shushing sounds as he approached and crouched down low. 

Morty wondered if he'd say something. He usually didn't; what was the point, after all? Even getting this close to Beth was a bit of an unnecessary risk- she could easily strike out at Rick from this position, and Morty shifted uncomfortably when it seemed like Rick paused for an inordinately long time, just looking at his daughter's face. 

For her part, Beth didn't look at him at all. Even when the purple light from the gun reflected on her face as Rick finally leveled it at her with a short sigh, her empty, watery gaze stayed fixed on Morty. 

He stayed in the garage as Rick shuttled his dazed mother up to her room, scrubbing his hands through his hair and blowing out a breath in an attempt to get his adrenaline back under control. 

Well, that was a night ruined. 

When Rick came back there was no question of resuming their previous activities. Morty knew better than to ask, even if he had still been in the mood. He was mildly surprised when Rick offered him the flask, and gave him a grim smile in thanks before he took a swig. Morty concluded the ritual in his traditional way- with a spluttering cough, maybe a bit more dramatic this time than it necessarily had to be. For comfort’s sake.

Rick quirked his lips is acknowledgement, and let Morty have a few more good chugs before punching him in the shoulder and taking the flask back.


	2. Resistance

“Jesus fuck, Morty, w-watch it!”

Morty slammed Rick against the old man’s bedroom wall, relishing the way Rick went with the motion, or, he liked to imagine, maybe even had no choice but to move given the strength of Morty’s maturing body. He tried to silence his grandfather with a bruising kiss and ignore the drunken sniggers still emanating from that sour mouth. 

“C’mon now, kiddo, wouldn't- wouldn't wanna go down for abuse of the elderly,” Rick finally guffawed, muffled around Morty’s lips. 

“Oh don't be r-ridiculous, Rick. You're more machine than man,” Morty replied as he leaned back, forcing his grin to come across as sexy rather than upset. “You can take it.” 

Rick smirked knowingly, and Morty nearly lost it. It didn't matter how stupid it was, he thought fiercely as he hauled a laughing Rick over to the bed. It didn't matter one bit, that smirk, whether it was leveled at him or at some skeezy bar hag with four improbable stiletto-clad legs who kept chatting up his grandfather when they were supposed to be leaving. And the sounds she made later like dying walrus when Rick fucked her in the filthy restroom didn't matter, either. None of it mattered, and that was a fucking fact. 

All that mattered was that Rick’s chuckles finally faltered when Morty got his pants down, melting into a groan when Morty sucked him down to the root, throat spasming in his determination. 

“Ohh god, kid. Fuck, just- just like that,” Rick rasped, head tilting back to push down into the mattress. He kept his hands at his sides, leaving Morty’s head free to bob at a pace of his choosing. Morty hummed in satisfaction, one hand wrapping around the base of Rick’s cock while the other slid down to circle and press teasingly at his anus. 

The stream of hoarse obscenities that Rick let out when a finger wormed its way inside, well-timed with a particularly harsh suck to the head of his cock, poured into Morty’s chest like mercury and settled there, cool and satisfying. 

 

Morty supposed he could count it a success that both of them had managed to get off before Rick passed out, even if his own orgasm had been delivered in the form of a fairly sloppy handjob. He trudged back up to his room, feet shuffling on the stairs as he made a half-hearted attempt to be quiet. He opened his bedroom door, sighing and running his fingers through his hair before stepping through and closing it behind him. 

The sight of his mother standing silently beside his door, back to the wall and eyes boring into him, almost made him scream. Almost. Heart racing, he let out a strangled shriek instead. His first thought was self-chastisement. Stupid, that was stupid of him. God, the behind the door trick, what was he, fourteen? He cleared his throat and began hesitantly, “M-mom? You, uh, everything ok?”

She didn't react at all. It was like she hadn't heard him. Blinking, Morty opened and closed his mouth few times, gearing up to try again and feeling increasingly unnerved. 

Then Beth moved. Like a statue coming to life, in slow grating steps she unfolded herself and pushed off the wall. Morty noticed the wine bottle in one hand and a corkscrew in the other, and backed up as she approached. He stopped when the backs of his legs hit the bed, and Beth stopped with him, swaying lightly where she stood a few feet away. 

“Mom, w-what's-”

“Who started it,” she said suddenly. The tone was all wrong for it to be a question, flat and robotic, barely softened at all by the wine. Her eyes were dull ice. There was a sensation in Morty's chest, a slow slide that gathered momentum like a tower of blocks falling over, and then he knew exactly what she was talking about and why she was here waiting in his bedroom in the middle of the night. 

His throat felt like it had welded itself shut. Black spots were swimming in his vision, and he blinked furiously, trying to buy time, trying to will the panic away just in case this wasn't actually happening. He needed to react. Every moment passing in silence was another shovelful digging deeper if this was real, but, fuck, he wasn't smart enough for this. He hadn't really planned for this. Beth was standing there waiting, looking at him. It just added to the surreality. 

“Wh-wha-”

Beth cut him off with a wave of her bottle-clutching hand, the few inches of liquid left in it sloshing in the quiet. 

“No. Nope. Don't, don't do that. Don't lie. Answer me Morty.” She paused and fortified herself with a swig from the bottle, groaning and staggering in place as she swallowed. Morty’s gut rolled unhappily. His mother had never seemed so much like _him_ as she did right now. Her eyes narrowed as Morty stayed silent, still struggling to compute the least damaging answer. 

“Actually, don't even bother. I know it was you.” Beth smirked humorlessly as she eyed him. Morty jerked, eyes widening in shock and a bit of nausea. He shook his head reflexively. 

“Ohh, Morty. It's hard being the apple of God’s eye, when- when God is someone like Rick Sanchez, isn't it? Lotta pressure. You just wanna keep that attention on you forever.” 

She shook her head and quirked her eyebrow, pulling a sympathetic tutting face. Then the smirk reappeared, far more edged and sly than before and Morty’s breath caught. He felt the hairs on his neck prickle in warning.

“Gotta give you kudos, though. Even I never thought of sucking him off to get him to stay.”

It was like she had hit him. That held breath must have rerouted itself to his stomach, because all of a sudden Morty was certain he was going to throw up. His hands and face felt hot, shaky. “Mom...” he began in a cracked whisper, then cleared his throat. Beth shook her head at him, closing her eyes. “M-mom that's not- I’m not- ”.

Beth forced her eyes back open and leaned forward as if searching for something in his face, and Morty felt his words dry up again as he peered anxiously back at her. Whatever she saw seemed to crumple her like she was made of old cardboard, energy leaking out of her as her mouth twitched, and only then, _only then_ did Morty felt guilt, true guilt like murky, tainted water begin to seep into him, bubbling up around the edges of hurt and panic, and so very damningly delayed. He had hurt her.

“Yes it is,” she said with a ragged edge, though her eyes were dry. “I bet that's almost exactly how it happened. You-” She gusted out a breath. “My father is a…” There was a twitching sneer as her voice faltered again, and a spark briefly flared in her eyes. 

“Is a lot of things. But he would never bother trying something as _boring_ , as _easy_ as molesting his stupid little grandson. No, that was all you, wasn't it, crawling into his lap like a needy little whore. Tell me, Morty,” She took another swig before she continued and Morty shuddered helplessly as he watched her. “Does he give you a pat on the head when you swallow? Does it make you _feel_ good?”

Beth said the last of that in a snarl, teeth baring on the word “feel”. Morty realized he was crying, wet streaking down his face as he stared in horror at the nightmare that had replaced his mother. She was wrong. It wasn't _like_ that. The funny thing was, a voice reminded him, as terrible as her words were, they upset him for all the wrong reasons. His priorities were in a word, fucked. He wondered if his mother knew that, knew how far gone it all truly was, and watched bleakly as she drained the last of the wine and let it fall to the ground. She probably did. 

“Well, Morty, anything to say? Gotta admit, I am kinda curious. What's it like, fucking my dad?”

“S-stop”

The word slipped out before he could think. This had gone on more than enough, his brain had finally recovered enough to point out to him. He couldn't talk with her about this, he _wouldn't_ , he didn't deserve it or she didn't deserve it, or _something_ , fuck. Either way it was useless and didn't matter and he absolutely would not do this. He needed to think. He needed her to shut up and needed to wake up Rick and needed to get him to fix this but oh Christ, Rick was passed out, so how was he- but she was still fucking looking at him, damn it. His mom, so broken and angry because of him. His mouth opened again without his permission. 

“I- I’m s-sorry. I'm sorry, Mom,” Morty's voice cracked on her name and distantly he hated how he wasn't even sure if that was a genuine slip or manipulation. He felt every bit a child. He also felt a bit like a monster. “But- please, please stop, I, it's- it's not like that, ok? I swear, it's-”

“You're not sorry. You're not sorry for any of it, for ruining yourself or him, ‘cuz after all, you're dumb enough to think you've got what you wanted, aren't you? You're just sorry you got caught because the two of you were too busy screwing each other to pay attention,” Beth bit out, then snorted. “Fucking Tupperware lids. You must be a hell of a good lay, Morty, to make him so stupid, I'll give you that.”

She was so close to him now,looming in his face, that for one sick second Morty broke through his stunned pain enough to have the fear she might kiss him. Then he noticed the corkscrew still in her clenched fist and his stomach dropped to his kneecaps. “Mom...” he croaked for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to keep his voice from shaking, and trying not to look at her hand. 

Beth glanced down at the corkscrew, then at him, then snickered with drunken humor. “Yeah, I can see it,” she said, nodding her head to herself. Then she added breezily, “After _allll_ , you're just gonna run off to your granddaddy and get him to wipe my brain again. But the thing is, Morty… you can't.” She pointed at him with the corkscrew as a bitter but undeniably proud smile stretched her lips. “I am his daughter after all. I'm not stupid. I've taken precautions, and I'm _very_ prepared to follow through. You can't sweep it up this time.”

Morty’s brain had finally taken charge over the frozen part of him that almost wanted to see this play out, and while she talked he silently tapped his thumb to his fingertips, activating the imbedded S.O.S. signal that with any luck would wake up Rick’s drunk ass and get him in here before Morty got stabbed by his unstable mother. (Stupid, so stupid. He should have just done this at the start, goddammit, why was he always so stupid) Then his mind caught up with his ears and he froze, staring at her. 

Her smile wobbled in response to his expression, tears finally welling to her eyes. “Yup, sweetie.” She sighed, short and sweet through her nose, and gave him a chiding, almost loving look. “Mommy isn't fucking around anymore.” 

As Morty stood there in bewilderment and Beth started to let out hiccuping laughs, Rick chose that moment to burst into the room. 

“What-” he snapped, then froze. He stood there in a grubby wife-beater and boxers with particle gun in hand, and took in the scene. Brow furrowing, he quickly surmised its conclusion.

“Fuck.”

Morty gave him a _do something_ look as Beth swung around, corkscrew still in her fist, and chirped, “Heyyy, Dad, guess what we’ve been discu-.”

Rick shot her in the stomach, and she toppled over into a still heap. 

“Fuck!” Morty burst out. “Is she- is she-”

“Don't be an idiot,” Rick replied snidely, walking over calmly to stare down at his daughter.

“Rick, sh-she said- she's got _p-precautions_ , we can't just- she might, l don't know, fucking kill herself, I don't…Oh Jesus,” Morty moaned helplessly, starting to fall apart in face of the situation now that the immediate threat was gone. The panic and dread and guilt swelled inside him unstoppably as he looked anxiously at his grandfather. 

“Oh, goddamnit. Well, this is gonna be fun.” Rick said in a meditative tone, and offered nothing more as he scratched his head, still looking at Beth. 

Morty had no idea what bizarre or horrible solution Rick might come up with or how it would involve the crumpled ball of his mother, and all of a sudden he absolutely could not take it. 

“Rick!” he cried out desperately, and Rick snapped his head up. “I can't- Don't do anything, y-you know, to her. We _can't_.”

“Well what the hell else would you suggest, Morty?” Rick began with defensive exasperation, and Morty continued wildly, blurting over him, “ _Can we just leave?_ ”

The words hung in the air for a few still moments. Morty swallowed and continued in a shaky, small voice, “Like, just- just get on the ship and- and go, you know?” 

“Yeah, Morty, I know what fucking ‘leave’ means, thanks.” Rick replied reflexively, then tilted his head and squinted at him. “You're talking for good.”

Morty shifted under his scrutiny, breathless with fear. He knew he should at least look Rick in the eye for something huge like this but he just couldn't, he couldn't bear to watch himself be weighed and found wanting, so he nodded at the man's nose instead, and waited. He heard a sigh.

“If you have anything you wanna take, get it. Gimme two hours.”

Morty shut his eyes, and breathed out.


	3. Undisclosed Desires

In the end Morty took nothing with him but a change of clothes. 

In his dazed state the decision to do so felt exhilarating, almost righteous. A clean break. There was also a hint of something talismanic about it; it _would_ be ok, and to take anything with him would be a sign of bad faith. When he had turned up in the garage empty-handed but for a small half-full backpack, Rick had scoffed and grumbled about laziness, but didn't really seem surprised. 

They got in the ship and left, and though Morty couldn't help but give the house a last glance, there was a heady amount of relief already filling him. The lump of dread and guilt towards the wrecked mother (abandoned first by husband, then daughter, and now he and Rick had stabbed a final blow, god help them) he was leaving behind felt lighter in the pit of his stomach than it probably should, easier to ignore than he would have expected. 

But eventually, like Morty had known it would but had desperately hoped otherwise, like it always _always_ did, the high began to wear off. He ignored it for as long as he could, shoving the creeping unease away as they sped through the inky dark of space, ignoring the way his body wanted to jitter and shake as the crushing reality of the situation weighed increasingly upon him. As nearly an hour approached of having done nothing but observe the nothing zooming by in silence, Morty gave into the rising tension inside him. 

“S-so what now?”

Rick didn't bother looking at him as he grunted, pushing a button on the console with his thumb in a lazy stretch. “Wow, Morty, only wondering that now? Gotta say, that's a pretty astonishing lack of foresight, even- even for you.”

Morty’s fingers twitched anxiously, and he noticed it and made himself stop.

“You know, I coulda been depending on _you_ to come up with a plan. Maybe- ever consider that? I should be asking _you_ , Morty what we’re- what we're gonna do now,” Rick added indignantly, and it was nothing, Morty knew it meant nothing, it was so absurd it was quite possibly Rick’s way of trying to joke with him and cheer him up. But the accusation he felt buried inside the words hijacked his senses and made him snap.

“Fuck, Rick, I don't- I don't know, do I? Is that the- the next line in the play? And then you can rag on me some more about how stupid I am and then- _only_ then, after you're all sated with the- with the mocking, can we actually move on in the conversation and, you know, I get it, okay? But can we just skip it just- just this once? I think this is legit enough to warrant that, is that- would that be _okay?_ ”

He was talking too loudly at the end of all that, almost hysterically, while Rick watched him impassively from the corner of his eye. Then he closed his mouth with a snap, feeling more overwhelmed than ever and more than a little aghast at himself. Things were more… precarious now and here he was randomly attacking a basic fundament of their dynamic. What the hell was he thinking? He exhaled sharply and shoved the line of thought away, but the sick feeling lingered in his chest. 

Rick was staring at him. Unobtrusively, still not looking directly at him, but Morty could tell. His grandfather huffed out a short, aggravated-sounding sigh, punched another button on the dash, and got up from his chair. 

“C’mon,” he muttered as he turned and moved past Morty. Morty swallowed and followed him shakily down to the lower back compartment. Rick turned the lever on the wall that made the narrow bed slide out from its embedded hiding place, and gestured at it with a flourish, before turning to look at Morty expectantly. When Morty just blinked at him he drawled, “Bed. Sleep. You,” with false patience as he pointed at the bed then at Morty. 

It was so not what he had expected, and so out of character for Rick to be, of all things, nagging him to “go to bed” that at first Morty just continued blinking in befuddlement. Then indignancy hit him; Rick was telling him to go to _bed?_ He had serious questions, valid fucking concerns about what the hell they were going to do and Rick’s response was to send him to bed like some kind of overtired fucking child? Hell fucking no. 

“Oh gee thanks, Rick, gonna get me a- a nice glass of warm milk too?” he said sarcastically. Rick gave him an unimpressed look as he ran a hand through his hair and continued in a forcedly calmer tone. Be calm, be reasonable, be mature. “Listen, I- I need to know what the plan is, that there _is_ a plan. I don't need sleep, or -or maybe I do, but there's no way I can fall asleep without knowing what's happening, Rick, and- I don't know, I get that- that you're tired or whatever too but- but…”

Morty had built up such a head of steam in his attempt at a reasonable conversation that it took him a bizarrely long time to notice that Rick had started calmly stripping off his clothes the entire time he was speaking. As it was it seemed like he blinked and there Rick was standing in his underwear, pale and gaunt and deceptively haggard as always. Morty’s thoughts derailed entirely, and then he narrowed his eyes up at his grandfather.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Rick shrugged, leaning to the side to start tugging off his boxers. “Getting ready to fuck you, what's it look like?”

That was when Morty’s aggravation and anxiety burst into full-on anger. “Are you fucking serious, Rick?! You- you think _that's_ what I want right now? Put your fucking clothes on you stupid ass, we don't have time for-”

“Actually, Morty, you're wrong. Big shocker, I- I know. We have plenty of fucking time. All the time in the universe. “But what _I_ don't have time for is listening to you uselessly wig out because you're tired and cranky. So if you're gonna be a big baby and refuse to sleep, then I'll just have to _put_ you to sleep.”

He stood there looking assured and vaguely smug, like he had just scored a winning point in some formalized debate. Morty debated just hitting him, but experience had shown that never really went well in the cramped confines of the ship. Instead he tugged off his shirt and said with a bit of a snarl, “Fine. But _I'm_ fucking you.”

It was an impulsive line, a manifestation of his current sense of helplessness and a challenge to Rick all at once. If Rick had responded with a smirk, or an eye roll, or some snarky fucking comment, Morty would have exploded back into anger again and the whole thing devolved from there. But instead Rick hesitated for an instant before the expected huff and eye-rolling agreement came. Just an instant, just a moment hinting at possible hesitancy or discomfort with the notion. It was just enough to fully tip the scales inside Morty, to light a feral sort of eagerness inside him that had him tugging his grandfather down onto the pitifully small bed. 

He didn't stay that rough, of course. Oh, he grabbed Rick’s arms, pulled them together behind the man’s back as Morty shoved him face-first into the foam mattress. That felt great. But then the mattress was made of some impossible plasticine bullshit that Rick probably invented, all squashy and forgiving and annoying, so Morty dug a knee into the small of Rick’s back. The yell Rick let out at that made him feel better again. 

But inevitably after the rough foreplay (because Morty didn't kid himself into thinking that it was anything besides that) he had to slow down. For one, there was simply no way of asking for lube that didn't put him on the back foot, the awkward virgin all over again no matter how powerful he wished to seem. And, well, despite himself and all his still-serious complaints this particular act was… well, it always felt special. 

So by the time Morty snatched up the lube that Rick fished out of some mystery location, he grabbed it with less force than he wished he would. His fingers were nearly gentle, goddamn them, when they reached between the legs he had so crudely shoved open a minute ago. And the sound Morty made when he finally forced himself to stop tracing circles and push his finger inside Rick was undeniably a quiet gasp. Rick stayed silent, though his shoulders twitched minutely at the initial intrusion. 

The angry fire throughout Morty hadn't gone out, but he couldn't express it outwardly the way he had been. So it just burned inside him instead, hurting him, making him desperate and feverish, making him suck kisses down what he could reach of Rick’s back as he crooked his finger searchingly, adding another and finally receiving a gratifying low sound from the man. 

He wished he could say that he slammed himself in once he had finished fingering Rick open, that he shoved down the man's head and lined up his cock and began pounding mercilessly away, the way he did in his fantasies sometimes. Instead he began with what was more of a persistent nudge, far more of a request than a demand. He stopped once the head popped inside to take a shuddering breath before pushing slowly, haltingly the rest of the way in. His eyes slid closed on their own initiative and for a blissful few moments, he just let himself drift. 

Rick’s body felt physically pleasant, of course; wet and hot and tight around him. But though he didn't sleep around particularly often, Morty wasn't a complete stranger to getting his dick wet. What made this so good, so toe-curling was _who_ it was, Morty knew, and knew Rick knew that as well. So when he moaned out a soft “Fuck,” as he began to rock gently inside Rick, he couldn't help but feel a bit ashamed of it. Exposed. 

Rick, it seemed, had chosen to respond to the mood with uncharacteristic near-silence aside from a few grunts and sounds deep in his throat as Morty slowly gained speed. He lay there with his head against his forearms, face hidden and body responsive but passive. Morty didn't know what that was supposed to be, some form of consideration maybe, that at least he wasn't being a verbally abrasive asshole like normal. But probably not. Rick probably just didn't give half a shit, was miles away in his head. It reminded Morty forcibly of one of the reasons he so rarely topped. Aside from his anxiety surrounding asking for it, the act itself was in some ways hardly worth it. The nagging sense of distance that Morty could ignore most of the time was more pronounced when he penetrated Rick. He was as close as he could physically get. And the man was still untouchable. 

So it was with a small, smothered burst of resentment that he reached around and took Rick’s cock in hand, speeding up the motion of his hips as he did so. He wanted Rick to come first. He wanted to see his grandfather unravel. And he wanted to be able lose himself in the feel of this and not have to worry about embarrassing himself by coming too soon. He firmed his grip on Rick’s erection, his other hand tightening on his hip as he tugged his grandfather backwards onto his cock with each thrust. Rick grunted, a flush spreading down his bony back as it arched slightly. God, but the bastard was stunning to see like this. 

Morty kept going, single-minded and unrelenting until he felt Rick shudder, felt him swell slightly in his hand before spilling with a low, almost irritated-sounding groan. His ass clenched wonderfully around Morty’s cock and Morty immediately began taking full advantage of the mindless tightness, pounding into Rick almost hard enough to sate that lingering dissatisfaction, to feel like with every slam he was burying himself further into his grandfather, imprinting the very shape of his dick. He finally came choking on air to the mental image of bruises, marks made by his cock blooming deep inside Rick. 

It re-occurred to him, afterwards as lassitude and weariness began to pull him under and Rick lay quietly next to him, staring at the ceiling and probably just waiting for Morty to fall asleep before he got up, that quite likely Rick had predicted and produced every aspect of this encounter from the moment they left the atmosphere. He had put Morty to bed just as he wanted, as simple and efficient a manipulation as you please. 

The shame and frustration and gratefulness and fear were still swirling in Morty’s belly when he reluctantly passed out.


	4. United States of Eurasia

The next morning (well, not “morning”, exactly, as there were no days or nights in space, but the mind still tended to think in such patterns) Morty woke feeling less frayed and more capable; to his chagrin but begrudging unsurprise Rick had been correct in his assumptions. 

He figured Rick had caught a few hours himself while Morty was out, though the man generally needed very little sleep. He seemed fresh enough as he greeted Morty, tossing a shrunken micropack of coffee at him as he climbed into his seat. Morty opened the valve to let air in and shook the packet, and it ballooned into a cup’s-worth of hot, sweetened coffee. He looked at it idly as he sipped. He had never bothered to wonder where Rick got all his long-term space travel shit from, whether he made them or bought them. It was the sort of thing that they might well be using a lot of in the near future. With that thought he decided to grit his teeth and revisit the previous night’s conversation.

“So, yeah, the plan,” Rick said suddenly, smirking at Morty’s startlement and the way he had preempted him by a few seconds- it was a favorite habit of his. Morty rolled his eyes. 

“Well, not much of one, to be honest. Basically, Morty, our- our options are find a new place to be aliens at, find a new dimension Earth to be non-aliens in, or just… not live anywhere,” he finished with a minute shrug. 

“What about the Citadel?”

Rick shot him a disgusted look. “Are you fucking kidding me? Not a chance in hell I'm- that we’re putting down our mat in that glorified hospice. Fuck that. We’re- we're better than that. Besides, I hear its even more of a shitthole now than it used to be.”

Morty nodded absently. He wasn’t a particular fan of the Citadel himself, it just seemed like the thing Ricks and Mortys did when they abandoned their Earth- moved there with their tail between their legs. But Rick was right, fuck that. “What do you mean, ‘not live anywhere’?”

“You know, not settle anywhere. Stay a few days here, a few months there. The universe is fucking big, kid. It’s stupid to stay in one place unless you have a good reason to. It’s like eating popcorn shrimp at Golden Corral every time, you know, it's- the popcorn shrimp isn't even that good, why limit yourself? There’s a whole fuckin’ buffet laid out for you and- and you keep bogarting shitty shrimp just because the shitty filet is like five steps to the left and- that's just lazy, Morty, no matter what those fat fucks try to tell you.”

“How long did you do that? The space thing, not Golden Corral,” Morty added quickly before Rick could use the excuse to go off on more of a tangent. 

“Shit, a long fucking time, Morty, what, thirty-something years? On and off though. I came back to Earth, stayed for a couple years, and after I left again I would pop in every so often, you know, see how shit was doing.”

This was a bizarrely casual information drop on something Rick practically never discussed- the years when he abandoned his wife and daughter. Morty blinked at the newness of it. There were more questions he wanted to ask now, like if his family was aware that he came back every so often, how did they react to it, for God’s sake why did he even leave, what the hell did he do for over thirty years? 

Instead he nodded again. None of those questions really mattered now, except maybe the last one. “Well… I guess let’s wander then, if y-you’re up for a few years more of it.” He instantly tensed, he wasn't even sure why, just that those last words seemed like a poor choice somehow. 

Rick hardly seemed to notice, though, he just jerked his head in agreement and began putting coordinates into the ship. “In that case, we should make a few stops, get our bearings, get supplies, maybe a bit of good gossip.” He pulled out his flask and brought it and his coffee pack to his mouth simultaneously, swigging both in an on-the-spot Irish coffee, before belching heartily and punching his foot down on the accelerator. 

 

Rick had boltholes in scattered locations throughout a couple different galaxies, in varying degrees of upkeep and usefulness. Most he had set up long before Morty ever knew him and there were only a few that Morty had ever personally been to. They made their way to one that they had used a little under a year ago. It was one of the nicer ones, an actual house, for lack of a better descriptor, on one of the asteroids in the Hebidian Belt. Well-stocked, and in a quiet but relatively stable system. Was even surprisingly clean, if Morty remembered correctly.

Still several hundred feet above it, it became apparent that was no longer the case. The safehouse was more accurately described as a pile of scorched, filthy rubble. Very much not how Morty remembered it. He glanced at Rick and the look on his face confirmed that this wasn’t some new security measure. Well, fuck.

“Well, fuck,” Rick said. “That blows. Had my second-best bowling shoes stashed there.”

Morty made a sound of commiseration, staring down at the place where he had been hoping to take a shower. 

“Ah well, shit happens. On to the next one.”

The next bolthole they flew to was on Agdworf Prime’s fifth moon, the only moon of Agdworf that was both solid and not populated by berserker snake-people, though the noxious sulphurous gas that the flora produced still made it a less than popular vacation spot. But the hut that should be there was obliterated, just a greasy black streak on the sponge-studded ground. Morty shot Rick an anxious look, but before he could open his mouth Rick snapped, “Calm your tits”, and they flew away again. 

The third bolt hole was hidden in a cave on an unnamed comet in orbit around an unremarkable red dwarf star with only numbers for a name. When they pulled up and found that cave collapsed, Morty didn't dare look at Rick, who muttered something fierce and indecipherable, drained his flask, and turned the ship around so suddenly and sharply Morty smacked his elbow against the side window. He scowled and gritted his teeth, but had the common sense to say nothing. 

After the fourth one was also found destroyed, Rick muttered, “Someone's been sitting in my chair,” and Morty snapped his head around to look at him. Without bothering to elaborate Rick shot his portal gun and stepped through, gesturing for Morty to stay with a lazy wave. 

After about twenty minutes he popped back in with a scowl on his face. “Well, they're all gone.”

“Holy shit,” Morty said faintly. 

“Yup. Fucking odd, to- to say the least. Nothing for it, gotta go see what Dirteater has to say about all this.” 

Morty sighed in resignation. Dirteater, or “Dirt McGurt”, as Rick was known to call him with drunken affection, was indeed a dirty motherfucker, and kind of a dillhole on top of it all. He was useful of course, known by those “in the know” to have each of his eight ears to a different hole in the ground. Something as strange as all Rick’s safe houses being destroyed could easily have registered on his radar. 

Dirt lived in a minor moonlet colony, long abandoned by a failed collective entity not dissimilar to Rick's ex-girlfriend and since repopulated with a mixture of down-trodden-but-honest-living folks and unmitigated scumbags. The rows of identical shacks were depressing and vaguely creepy in a Soviet-esque way, but presumably the anonymity worked well for those living there. 

They left the ship safely stashed a few miles away in an effort to preserve that anonymity and portalled directly into Dirteater’s one-room living space, a risky move with someone as burnt out as Dirt but try telling Rick that. Morty had given up years ago. 

This time though, there were no shouts or Klax-shakey gunfire to dodge. That was because Dirt McGurt was only half there. More precisely, his lower mandible, torso, and two and a half of his four arms were there. The rest had been lasered off, by the looks of it. Dirteater was dead. 

Morty whistled lowly and glanced around, noting the undisturbed bags of dirt still in place on or against nearly every available surface. Whoever killed him did it fast, with little or no struggle. 

“Shit. I- I'm sorry, Rick,” Morty said somewhat awkwardly. He never knew how to respond when an associate of Rick's turned up dead. Sometimes Rick didn't care. Sometimes he went on a weeks-long drinking and destruction binge. 

Rick grunted in response, bending over to peer at the remains. Morty shifted his feet around like an idiot. “He- I- I guess it's not too unexpected. Guy had to have a lot of enemies-”

“He was killed less than a day ago,” Rick interrupted in a musing tone. 

“Oh…”

Morty felt even more uncertain, and more than a little uneasy at that pronouncement. He glanced around the dingy room again, as if expecting an assassin to pop out from behind one of the bags. 

“Let's get out of here.”

He jumped at the sound of Rick’s voice next to his ear and Rick smirked faintly at him. He shot open a portal and they hopped back to the ship. 

As Rick flicked on the ship’s systems and began to pilot them into the atmosphere Morty took a moment to gather his wits and ask, “So what n-”

Suddenly a loud screeching, scraping sound echoed in the small space as the ship shuddered around them. Rick cursed and pulled up the rear viewscreen. Behind them in almost lazy pursuit was another ship, narrow and windowless with a flat gray hull. It was clearly firing on them, and Rick sighed dramatically as he swung the ship in a quick dodge and hit the accelerator. 

“What the everloving fuck is this,” he griped rhetorically while Morty grabbed hold of his own toggle and prepared to shoot back, his well-worn role in these types of situations. 

They rocketed between the asteroids that orbited the moonlet and Morty did his best to return fire, though as far as he could tell nothing hit, or had any apparent effect. When they finally cleared the belt Rick flipped on the hyperspeed and the ship shot forward at impossible, faintly nauseating speed. By all rights that should have been the end of it- Rick’s concentrated dark matter tech ensured that generally they were the fastest things around. 

But the ship was still behind them, keeping pace, and they were still getting hit. The sounds of impact were hideous, blistering energy tearing into the ship’s hull. A shrill alarm began to go off. Rick cursed even more vehemently, pulled his portal gun and hastily adjusted the settings, then fired it through the front window. A wide blue circle yawned open up in front of the ship’s nose. They dove through it. 

Portalling the entire ship to a different area took a lot of juice from the gun and was hard on the ship, and was generally only used when absolutely necessary. But it was effective. The portal snapped closed behind them the instant they had passed through. Rick blew out a raspberry, rolled his neck, and turned to say something. 

A blue circle opened up a few hundred yards off to their right, and the gray torpedo-like ship emerged. Morty opened his mouth to garble out a warning, but the sound of yet another hit beat him to it and with an angry sound like a stepped-on cat Rick fired his portal gun again and they sped into it once more. 

Things became chaotic after that. The ship followed them again and again, impossible as it was, even when Rick switched settings and began diving them into green interdimensional portals instead mere intergalactic ones. They'd emerge from the portal and it would emerge from its own several seconds later like a faithful dog. 

Rick barked out orders as Morty alternated between continuing to attempt seemingly-futile return fire and bustling about the ship patching the leaks and shorts that were piling up as they continued to receive damage. He registered distantly that this was bad, this was pretty bad. In another situation they could have just abandoned ship and portalled themselves out but what if this thing just followed again? How was it even following them in the first place? 

There were so many alarms going off it was hard to think, and the ship was rattling like it was about to fall apart. In a flurry of movement and desperation Rick shot the portal gun like it was a machine gun and dove them through the nesting circles no less than ten times in a matter of about three seconds, muttering “Fuck, fuck you, fuck off you bastard,” between clenched teeth as they hopped at dizzying, nauseating pace. 

That final frenetic burst seemed to shake the pursuing ship, and after they emerged from the final portal they found to their brief relief they were alone. But by now there were other problems- the ship was dying on them. It had sustained far too much damage between the firing and the portaling and was getting pulled helplessly down into the gravity well of a nearby dusky purple planet. It picked up speed as Rick swore like a man possessed and hit buttons, smacked the console, slammed down the accelerator in a manic blend of presumable knowledge and blind intuition. 

Morty hardly noticed, he was busy trying to stop one of the pressurization fluids from leaking all over the floor before the internal pressure failed and they got fucking spaghettified straight through a ventilation duct. But he was conditioned to listen to Rick yell at him, particularly when he got a particular tone in his voice, and his attention snapped back to hear his grandfather shouting. 

“-enough to get us out. I should be able to get the piece of shit down slow enough to not totally disintegrate. Morty, your- Morty what the fuck!? Get your ass back in the seat, we’re going down, you fucking-”

Many things happened at once, then. The ship hit atmosphere with a loud, fatal-sounding groan, Rick screamed at him to put on his fucking seat belt, Morty scrabbled back to his seat frantically, fumbling with the belt for a second. Then there was a deafening squeal of rending metal, a bolt of blinding pain, and blackness.


	5. Guiding Light

Rick was a bit like a wild animal.

That could be taken in numerous ways, all with some romanticized and/or unflattering truth to them. But at this moment, the most relevant similarity was the way both responded poorly to confinement. A wild animal would get so wound up as to be insensible, would chew off its own leg in a rabid, instinctive bid for freedom.

Rick, however, preferred to chew off Morty’s leg. 

It was hardly the first time they had been stranded. It hadn't even been that long, a mere two weeks, maybe, though Morty had been pretty out of it at the start so he wasn't sure. It was a familiar scenario; Rick slowly but surely cobbling together their way out while Morty healed from whatever injuries he had inevitably accrued and mostly tried to stay out of the way. Rick was never cheerful about being grounded somewhere, but he wasn't usually quite this bad.

Granted, this was a kind of creepy one, as far as jams went. They were stuck in an transparent, shimmery blue energy dome that a paranoid Rick had thrown together immediately after making sure Morty wasn't still in danger of bleeding out. It was supposed to hide their signatures from whoever was pursuing them, and though that felt like a dubious concept to Morty when they had no idea _who_ was pursuing them, it regardless seemed to be keeping whoever it was at bay so long as they stay in their 50 meter bubble. 

He watched Rick pace as he talked into his interdimensional cell phone. In between repairing his ship and Morty both that was practically all the man ever did. 

The first couple of days Morty knew had been rough even with his hazy recollections of them. Rick, limited in communication by the bubble, had made his way through a mental list of alien contacts and known associates of said contacts, attempting to track them down through hours of tagging, nagging calls only to reach the same answer every time. Every mole, sketchball, derelict or otherwise useful disreputable person, every connection he tried, was presumed or confirmed dead. 

Rick had barely spoken for a day after coming to that conclusion, he just sullenly worked on the scattered remains of the ship and didn't acknowledge Morty beyond checking on his healing rib cage. Between alien hospitals and all the supplies on the ship, a punctured lung was normally no big thing. But, well, with the ship powered down and no access to anything but Rick's equivalent of a field kit, patching Morty up took a bit more time and effort. 

By the time Morty felt well enough to get up and walk around and talk (he thought day 8?) Rick was in full piss and vinegar mode and had progressed to his current main activity- haranguing and harassing other Ricks. Day possibly-12 was little different. 

“Listen, I need you to get off your ass and see if the fucker’s still alive…Yeah no shit he smells, this- this ain't exactly a pleasure call, 66, I- I wouldn't be askin’-... Fucking fine, Jesus.”

He blew out a breath and gave Morty a narrow-eyed look when Morty had the misfortune to wince from a poorly-timed, overly-deep breath and draw his attention. Morty rolled his eyes and continued recalibrating the connectors in his plasma gun from his seat on the tent floor. 

“Jesus Christ of course I'm still here, you goddamn-... Uh huh… Yeah….No.”

He closed the phone with a snap and a huff. Morty glanced up in askance. 

“Well, s’far as I can tell I'm the only lucky asshole who’s having- getting all their shit fucked with. Every other Rick I've checked up on has all their stashes and supports and- and friends- all their ducks still in a nice little row, not blown to fuckin’ smithereens. ‘Course, few Ricks I tried to ask are dead but,” he shrugged, “Nothing unusual there.”

“Wh- why are you so sure it's a Rick thing? Maybe they're just targeting you because y-you’re _you._ ”

“For the love of God, Morty. We- I fucking know I explained this already. Who the hell else would have the interdimensional travel tech? Who else would possibly know about the boltholes or guys I use? This is Rick bullshit. Fucking- don't ask the same stupid questions. Just don't say anything.”

Anger and hurt flared in Morty, and he put down his plasma gun. “Wh-why are you so fucking pissy? The ship's fixed, I’m fixed, we can finally get the fuck out of here-”

“And go where, Morty? I'm being targeted, obviously, by some _Rickhole fuck_ that's gonna try to shoot my ass off as soon as I step out of this fucking bubble, I don't- I got none of the cushy resources I spent thirty fucking years gathering, even- even getting materials to build is gonna be a total fucking bitch for the unforseeable future-”

“Fuck, okay. Okay. Well, I guess we gotta figure out who’s doing it-”

“Jesus Christ just shut _up!_ ” Rick snapped. “What- what do you think I've been doing? The wells are all dried up, Morty, I- I got nothing to go on here, and a big bleedy whiney albatross around my neck in the meanwhile.” Rick drew in and let out a breath, then pulled out his flask and took a swig. “It's not- this isn't sustainable. It sure as fuck ain't what I signed up for. I'm calling it.”

“What?” It happened too quickly for Morty to even really be upset-sounding, his reply more confused than alarmed. 

“I'm wiping Beth’s brain and sending you back.”

Rick had lost his mind. That was the only explanation for how he thought Morty would go with this. “What? I- Oh, _fuck no_ I'm not. Are you insane? Wh-why would I go back to that?” 

“Morty, you lasted about 48 hours before almost dying from the most basic space shit imaginable, and- and it took two weeks to fix you. I don't have the supplies to keep fixing you, and I can't figure all this shit out and have you dragging me down. It ain't exactly the right time for M-Morty’s fledgling space life. I'll- I'll come back,” he added, entirely unconvincingly. He had the audacity to lie to Morty's face, the bastard. And ‘fledgeling’, who was a fucking fledgeling? Not Morty, that was for damned sure.

“I'm not ditching. I- I never have before, of course I'm not gonna fucking bail. Stop acting like I ever w-would.” Morty said it as calmly as he could. He’d give Rick no quarter. No inch of room to budge him in his flat refusal to entertain this nonsense, this, whatever it was. 

“You're being fucking stupid and selfish, and you're gonna get us both killed if you stay. You- you know that, right? Is that your big plan, a nice- a nice little Thelma/Louise for ya?”

It was like a nightmare from when he was fifteen. Morty lashed out reflexively.

“Oh right, because you're so fucking omniscient, Rick, you- you know everything that's gonna happen, right? How did _this_ happen? How didn't you notice this was- this was going on b-before everyone fucking died?” _That_ struck a nerve; Morty could see it on Rick’s angry face, and he took a step back despite himself. 

“You know what?” Rick said quietly, dangerously. The hairs on Morty’s neck rose. “Because of you. You know where I was when my boltholes were gettin’ nuked? Getting a shitty blowjob in my bedroom. I let you drag me into your stupid little sphere and- and spent all my free time diddling my grandson and humoring his stupid bullshit, and _didn't_ spend the time to make sure all my- my _life’s shit_ wasn't on _fire_ in the meanwhile.” 

His voice had turned louder and venomous, practically spitting at him. It tore into Morty and he felt sick at the spinning familiarity of it. His mother was wrong, had to be wrong. Rick didn't do obligation for its own sake (maybe he just didn't do long-term obligation, a voice whispered). Logically Morty knew he must still be here for a reason, somehow. He wouldn't have gotten this far otherwise. This couldn't be what it sounded like.

Rick’s eyes were hard. “You make me stupid. And I can't afford to be stupid. You can't afford for me to be stupid. So I'm done being stupid, and I'm sending you home.” He said home with a silent, screaming “forever”.

Morty wouldn't _let_ it be what it sounded like. And Rick could go to hell if he was going to try to put this on him, to start talking about what Morty could or couldn't afford after fucking everything. 

“What the fuck, and just- just never come back, huh? Little late for that, d-dontcha think? Seriously though, what exactly do you think’s gonna happen to me if you do that, Rick? Think I'm gonna- that- that I'll just be a ‘real boy’ again?” 

“Quit being melodramatic.”

“Quit acting like you're saving me when you're just being a scared, selfish d- dickhole. It's-” Morty snapped his jaws closed around the insults that wanted to keep coming, and felt proud when he redirected himself to a new, better idea. “Anyway it- it doesn't matter. I'm not going anywhere.” His tone was level, as deadly serious as he could manage. 

“And if I just knock you out, dump you there and fly off?” Rick tossed out with edged casualness.

“What do _you_ think?” 

Rick gave Morty a hard look and Morty stared back at him, furious and desperate and willing Rick to see just how much he wasn't playing about this. Morty absolutely was this selfish. He would do it, if he was left behind in an empty suburban hell he'd self-destruct just to spite Rick, he told himself fiercely, he _would._

“Just like your mother, huh?” Rick's face was unreadable. 

“I guess so,” Morty said unblinking.

After several wary seconds of standoff, Rick’s shoulders drooped slightly but unmistakably and he sighed, and that seemed to mark the end of the debate or at least a temporary ceasefire. Morty pressed his advantage and moved forward, seizing the infuriating, stressful (God, Rick was so stupid, just an absolute thick-headed, spastic, arrogant, and if he thought Morty would just let him up and leave after molding Morty into his fucking image he had another thing coming) son of a bitch shamelessly with his hands and mouth.

“Don't do that shit. Don't- don't say things like, don't try to ‘save me’- just don't, alright? There's no point” Morty murmured in between kisses and bites to Rick's jaw, feeling his heart continue to race. He needed it, needed Rick always, always, always.

Rick responded with a grunt that sounded mostly like agreement, and that Morty barely heard, regardless. The nearness of the averted disaster was sinking into him, making his fingers want to shake as he brought them down to press demandingly against his grandfather’s groin. He sucked in a still-tender breath as he turned his head into Rick’s chest, trying to ground himself quickly before Rick could comment on how pathetically on the edge he was. 

“Alright, enough, that’s enough, calm down before you fall over, you- you fuckin’ pansy.” So much for that. 

Rick took Morty's hand and pulled it away from him, and then he tugged Morty down to the floor and impeded his labored breathing further with a deep, invading kiss, and Morty didn't care if it made him pathetic, he could have sobbed in his dumb animal relief. Rick caught the look on his face and rolled his eyes. 

“If you get all weepy I really am gonna- gonna stop and ditch you- so try not to be so, you know, _you_.”

As he said it his hand slipped down Morty’s pants and began toying with his partially-hard cock, rolling it in his fingertips, a soft counterpoint to teasing word, familiar and soothing. Morty hummed encouragingly as sparks of arousal glinted at his grandfather's touch and lifted his hips to help Rick tug his jeans down. He closed his eyes and played idly with himself as he listened to the sounds of Rick undressing, willing his heightened state to transmute to arousal and smirking faintly at the indecipherable grumbles he heard as the man got down on the hard, pallet-covered tent floor. 

“Such a lewd little slut,” he heard Rick tease, and then there were hands spreading his thighs and he opened his eyes in time to see that smug mouth opening wide to suck down his cock. The sight of it was one punch to the gut, the shocking wet suction another. Morty doubled up with a gasping “Christ” that immediately turned into a pained yelp as he overtaxed his ribs. 

Rick stopped sucking him, ignoring Morty’s noise of complaint, and snickered. “Okaaay then, no blowie for Morty. Not if you're gonna re-crack a fucking rib.” He pushed lightly down at Morty’s chest and smirked at Morty’s indignant look. 

“Fine, Jesus, calm the fuck down. But keep your head on the ground, or I'll stop. Think you can manage that?”

He started sucking Morty off again, a hand on Morty's stomach grounding him in place. Morty huffed and tried to keep his body relaxed as pleasure pooled slowly inside him. Rick’s mouth was gliding around him in a pulsing rhythm and pressure that was just fast enough to tease Morty’s arousal, occasional flicks of tongue against his frenulum mixing stronger bolts of sensation into the thrum inside him. 

But it wasn't enough. Rick’s mouth wasn't changing or picking up pace, and though it felt heavenly enough that Morty was almost content to just drift in it, his need to come wasn't something he was just inclined to ignore. He began to shift, to wriggle his hips as he let his face show his frustration. When Rick just grinned around his cock (how the fuck could the bastard do that and look dangerous and sexy instead of stupid as hell) and made no change, Morty burst out.

“C’mon! J-Jesus Rick, it's not- I'm not about to die- I need more, here. Please?” he added when Rick just cocked a brow at him. Then Rick pulled his mouth away entirely, damn him.

“What- that’s, like, that's the- the exact opposite of what I wanted, Rick. C’mon s-stop being a dickhole.”

When Rick snickered again, obviously delighted in himself Morty had to struggle to hold back any answering smile, not wanting to encourage him. 

“Yeah, yeah, princess, I got ya.” Rick bit teasingly at Morty's thigh as he spread him wider, grabbing a leg and bending it up at the knee for Morty to wrap his arms around, and Morty complied eagerly. “Now lie there and be good w-while I finger that pretty hole of yours.”

“Oh my fucking god, shut up,” Morty said loudly, appalled and without the use of his hands to hide his face in, so he just closed his eyes mulishly as Rick laughed again, thankfully quickly putting his mouth back to better use as he licked at Morty's erection. There was a finger against him, wet and centered with barely any pressure, tickling his nerves. 

Morty groaned at the tease. He felt his muscles open and close on instinct, wanting and mindless. With the slightest increase of pressure timed with another pulse of muscle the finger did slip in just a little, his body pulling at it greedily. He felt a shiver move through Rick and it made the moment of pleasure peak sharper, the moan he let out high and pleased as the finger finally, god thank Christ, started to push fully inside him. 

“Beautiful,” he thought he heard Rick mutter, and it satisfied him even if it was possible he had imagined it. When he tilted his head down all he saw was Rick’s mouth busy sucking on the head of his cock, long finger beginning to pump steadily in and out of him. When Rick’s eyes met his he quickly closed them again. Often eye contact with Rick during sex was too much for Morty, so he just dodged it. Rick didn't mind. 

The sensation of another finger tracing around the skin of his entrance made him tense in anticipation. But it was ages before Rick did anything else, ages of wet stroking and circling and distracting movements of Rick’s tongue against his cock until Morty could almost cry before he felt a second finger press in against the first. 

He shuddered as they began to slide incrementally inside him. Rick was moving very, very slowly today, suckling on his cock as his hand curved around and held onto Morty's hip. It wasn't completely unprecedented; he thought back to those early months when Rick had shown a surprising amount of care and a sense near-hesitation in his sexual dealings with Morty. It had felt intoxicatingly tender, the way certain rare actions of Rick’s still occasionally did. He couldn't help but think this felt similar.

But Rick didn't really do tender, of course. Not for its own sake. Which lead to the question of why he was choosing to do so, now. Was it distraction? An apology for trying to send him away? Maybe, maybe an affirmation of his regard? Or it could be nothing more than an acquiescence to his injuries, a pragmatic solution to the question of how to best quiet down a half-broken but horny, wound-tight Morty. Common sense and experience would say the answer was some mix of several answers, but likely predominately the last one. It hardly mattered though, it was nice either way, he told himself as he squirmed at the sensation of fingers sliding significantly deeper into him, stretching his rim. 

“Hey Morty,”

Morty grunted in displeasure when Rick stopped tonguing his cock. “What?,” he said when it seemed the man required verbal acknowledgement. 

“I bet I could conduct a song out of you.”

He sounded far too chipper. “What?” Morty repeated more suspiciously, tilting his chin down to stare at him. Rick grinned up at him. 

“A song. Well, more of a chant-back lazy rapper kind of deal, to get all technical, but anyway I- I think we should give it a shot.”

“Rick what the hell-”

Then Rick was yelling rapidly. “C’mon Morty, lemme hear you say ‘aaaahh.’” And he suddenly crooked his fingers, letting the tips skim across Morty’s prostate. Morty yelped in surprise at the burst of sensation and immediately blushed. Rick grinned wider.

“See? Easy as- as pie. Now lemme hear you say ‘oooooh.’”

Morty was better prepared for the way the fingers twisted inside him this time and mostly swallowed down any noise, though he couldn't help but close his eyes and clench his face at the pleasure that shot through him. When it passed he glowered at Rick, who looked even more delighted at his reluctance. 

“Alright alright, I'll stop. Just lemme hear ya say-”

And he shoved his fingers in hard and Morty absolutely couldn't help it, he let out a close-lipped squeal that had Rick giggling like an idiot as he began pressing inside him. 

“Fuh- fucking- douchebag. Stop it,” he wheezed. 

“Seeee, you _say_ that. But I- I'm kinda doubting you mean it.”

Rick’s grin was so stupid Morty couldn't help it- he cracked, rolling his eyes as a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. 

“Yeah, yeah you're a- a real v-virtuoso Rick. Now you gonna get me off, or…?”

Rick snorted. “Knowing you it won't exactly take much more. Trick is getting you to come without passing out on me. Now shut up, lay back down, and don't bust a rib, dumbass.”

Morty tried his best to remember that simple instruction, though it did get a bit touch and go for a couple of seconds when Rick, who had resumed blowing him, swallowed him down his throat like a fucking snake. The possibly-imagined sight of his cock half-lodged in his grandfather's skinny neck (he swore he could see it bulging there) was almost too much for him, the effort of restraining himself from convulsing or shouting making black spots burst in his vision. 

Rick bobbed his head up and down more quickly, taking Morty to the root as he continued milking his prostate. Morty’s orgasm swelled in his gut like a star being born- slow and warm and implacable, then expanding in a sudden rush that seemed more overwhelming for how limp he was trying to keep himself. His feet thrashed and his head tilted back as he rode out the crashes of pleasure, high moans slipping through clenched teeth. 

When it ended he felt worn and sated, barely bothering to grimace as Rick pulled his fingers out of him. He glanced at his grandfather, more specifically at the tent in his pants, with a speculative eye. He wondered if Rick would mind if he just laid there limply while the man used him to get off. Probably not.

He licked his dry lips. “So, uh… you gonna fuck me now, I guess, huh?” He did try to swallow the yawn that rose up in him, he really did. 

“Oh wow, _thank you_ , Morty. I- I'll be sure to call up the pope and get it- get that martyrdom made official.”

Rick still shucked off his shirt and rolled Morty onto his side, laying down behind him to spoon against his back in direct contrast to his words. Then his breath was in Morty’s ear. 

“Not gonna fuck you, kid. Close but- but uh, no cigar.” He had to break off for a moment to chuckle, apparently at his own wit. “Lift your leg for a second.”

When fingers began spreading slick lube on his inner thighs Morty got an idea of what they were doing. His brow rose with surprise. They hadn't done _this_ for… shit, a long fucking time. It was another thing reminiscent of and mostly relegated to earlier days. He felt his groin ache faintly in anticipation as he lowered his leg and loosely hooked his ankles together, Rick swinging an arm over him.

Morty inhaled softly as Rick slid his cock in between his wet thighs, starting up a easy back and forth with little pause. The nudging pressure against his balls and the heat of Rick against his back felt good. Not good enough to truly get him going again, but still nice. He saw the logic of the choice and mentally commended Rick. It required practically no effort on his part, except to keep his ankles crossed, and in his languid state the constant soft slide was surprisingly soothing. 

Morty felt lulled into a strange near-doze, relaxed and warm by the time Rick came, his climax evident more by the sensation against Morty's groin and the hitch of breath in Morty’s ear than any obvious sign. He pulled himself free of Morty's thighs but otherwise stayed there, panting lightly. He kissed Morty then, brief but there, right behind the ear. 

Morty was proud of his self control as he continued to feign being in a light mostly-sleep, lax and senseless. He even managed to keep his smile almost completely off his face.


	6. Unnatural Selection

Morty woke up next to Rick.

He smirked at the rare sight of his grandfather huddled and drooling on his shoulder for slumber instead of intoxication-related reasons. Then he smiled bigger at the remembrance that this no longer had to be a rare occasion; they could wake up together whenever they wanted now without fear of fallout. Then his grin faltered. Of course, while they were indeed “free in space”, the “free” part was a bit lacking with the whole current situation. 

He sighed. 

Like an unwanted ghost the memory of the previous day's near crisis swam up. It was over, right? He wasn't sure he ever got a true confirmation of acquiescence about it from Rick, come to think of it. Typical. 

Like he had been summoned back to consciousness, Rick twitched against him, stilled, then stretched with a grunt, breaking contact with Morty. Morty watched as he sat up and without looking at Morty reached out and ruffled his hair before standing and striding off. 

Morty blinked. Blushed. Sighed at himself. And decided to just take it as a good sign. 

As they were eating a rudimentary breakfast and Morty was doing his best to not think about anything, Rick said, “I’ve thought about our next move.”

Morty stopped chewing his eyeholes in condensed milk and looked at him warily. 

“I need to talk to V-904.”

Morty stiffened. “Won't that take ages?” What would Morty do for months alone stuck in this bubble? What if Rick never came back?

“Less time than it used to. Let the little prick put an identifier in me a while back, cuts his precious processing time into about a quarter of what it used to be.”

“Seriously? I can't believe- why’d you let him do that?” He couldn't imagine Rick, his Rick, letting anyone put any sort of tag on him, nonetheless someone as… fucked as Rick V-904. 

Rick shrugged, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “Guy’s useful as fuck. And being away- the wait time was too long for my tastes. Worth it.” He speared his synthetic eggs and swallowed a mouthful. 

“Can I come with you?”

Rick snorted then hurriedly swallowed from his flask. “Of course you fucking can't. Why do you think I wanted to take you back- I wanted you stashed away while I talked to him.” He gave Morty a meaningful glance. 

“Yeah, m-maybe I’d believe that if you had just been talking about leaving me behind, like, for a bit. But- but that's not what you meant, now is it?” Morty said challengingly. Good, that was good. Here it was again, and he wasn't about to back down now. 

Rick looked at him, stoically still chewing his eggs. Finally he mumbled, “No, it wasn't.” He grimaced and put down his fork, sighing with obvious reluctance. 

“I'm not going to apologize, obviously.”

Something unclenched in Morty’s chest. “I wouldn't expect you to,” he replied just as evenly. Rick looked at him a moment longer, nodded, then wolfed down his last bit of food and stood up. 

“Sooner I leave sooner I get back,” he said almost aimlessly, gathering up his portal gun and shoving various bits of odds and ends into the bottomless pockets of his labcoat. “It should take about a week and a half. Plenty of supplies, stay in the bubble, yada yada. Anything happens, or if I'm gone for like more than a month, take the ship and fly to 66’s. It's preprogram three.” He snickered at the look Morty gave him.

“Yeah I know he sucks ass, but he's like the only Rick I know that's more likely to help ya than fuck you over. Or just fuck you.” He grinned wider at Morty’s dramatic shudder and gagging sound. 

“Keep your nose clean kid.”

He paused a moment and Morty gave him a nod that was probably more unhappy than competent-looking. Then Rick shot his portal gun and stepped through the green circle without a backwards glance.

 

The days were a creeping blur of trying to stave off boredom and stress and succumbing to said boredom and stress. Over and over in a cyclical pattern of pacing and reorganizing and pondering and jerking off and dozing.

He tried not to worry about Rick, but it was impossible. V-904 was dangerous; a paranoid doomsday-prepper kind of Rick that lived in a constantly-shifting dimensional pocket and had reputation for two things- knowing things he shouldn't, and being meaner and crazier than a shithouse rat. Well, there was a third thing he was known for, but Morty didn't know what precisely it was, only that it was the reason Rick never wanted Morty anywhere near the guy and almost seemed inclined to hide him whenever he paid 904 a rare call. Morty had never brought himself to directly ask. He felt a bit sick at the thought that they had no option but to seek his help right now. 

By the two week point he was getting truly antsy. The sound of a portal opening made him spin around, heart in his throat. And the sight of Rick clambering out sent limp relief through him that he tried manfully to conceal. 

But then his arms were around Rick, so he must not have done a very good job. 

“Jeez, that bored, huh?” he heard his grandfather mutter as a hand rucked up his hair. The old background fear of “what if it isn't actually him” quieted and Morty took a step back and cleared his throat, embarrassed. 

Rick rolled his eyes, gave him a brief lopsided smile, and then moved on. 

“So, to get right to it. According to the slimeball, we’re fucked. This is coming down all the way from the top, baby, Mr. Big Spooky President Morty himself.”

At Morty's blank look he huffed, “Seriously? It's- you know, you really should keep up more on this shit. Know what you- what your people are up to and everything. The trumped-up little dingleberry that's- that’s been running around using the Citadel as his own pathetic little dictatorship fantasy?”

“What the- why didn't you say anything about it?”

“Hey man I'm not- I'm not gonna use my Rick-privilege to tell you what you need to know about stupid Morty shit. I- I respect your right to inform yourself.”

Morty stared at him. 

“Alright, I just didn't- I didn't really give a shit,” he admitted easily. “But apparently I should have, ‘cuz he and a bunch of his pet Ricks have cooked up some some algorithm that spits out predictions based on Rick commonalities. So he knows what I'm gonna do based off of how much of a ‘Rick move’ it is.”

He sighed and rubbed a hand down his face at the repeat of the look of blank incomprehension. “Yeah, knew this was gonna be fun. Alright, so, take Dirteater. Most Ricks have a Dirteater, and most of those Ricks use him in more or less the same function I did. It's a common Rick theme, having a Dirt McGurt. Labcoats- a super common theme. And if you analyze a bunch these commonalities across the Central Finite Curve trends emerge; certain Ricks are more similar in assets and behavior than other Ricks. Combine that with the commonalities based on temporal causality that regulate dimension assignment, and you can basically make a program that will know with a fair degree of accuracy what moves a Rick will make, based off how similarly he's behaving to the other Ricks most like him. Anyway, they got this thing up and running a couple of months ago and have been using it to put the squeeze on Ricks considered ‘enemies of the Citadel.’” 

He shot Morty an amused look. “Guess who has the honor of being considered a ‘high priority’?”

“So- so it- they- he knows everything you're going to do?” Morty said, confused and alarmed.

“Well no, not everything. It's not a mind reader. That's the beauty of self determination, Morty. It can only make predictions. It can't know with certainty what I'm going to do.”

“I- I thought you were all about certainty.” Morty mumbled, rubbing his head. 

Rick looked pleased. “True. But I’ll be fine. Don't have to do a goddamn thing, a-actually. Know why?”

Morty shook his head dumbly.

“Cuz I got the master of constant woeful uncertainty right here with me.” Rick leaned over and gave Morty’s shoulder an enthusiastic shake. “That's the key Morty. I- I don't even have to wrestle with the whole stupid ‘am I being too Rick’ bullshit trying to decide what to do next. I'll just ask you.”

“W-what?”

Rick grinned maniacally, waggling his eyebrow. “What do you think we should do, Morty? Anything I decide might end up compromised, so it's your call.”

Morty stared at him, gobsmacked. When he realized Rick was serious he opened and then immediately closed his mouth, then buried his hands in his hair and began pacing. 

“Okay, okay, okay. So… the President of the Citadel, this Morty, has this program thing that he uses to predict what kind of shit you have and ruin it, or- or predict what you do and fuck it up. B-but it's not a mind-reader.”

“Yup.”

“He's using it to ruin your life because you're- what, an- an enemy of the state?”

Rick shrugged. “Loosely defined. I'm like one of fifty Ricks being targeted in this first sweep, according to V-904. From what I can tell it's just Ricks that tend to like to fuck shit up. Doesn't really surprise me- apparently this kid's got some real psycho-dommy bullshit going on, likes his Ricks in their place.” He raised his brow innocently as if to say “some people”.

Morty took a few seconds to absorb this and move on. “So- so this- all this shit is just his personal vendetta, or- or whatever crazy bullshit he wants to call it- it's all him? No one else cares?”

“Yeah, Morty, that's- pretty much. It's part of the perks of a dictatorship, I guess, making stupid useless broad-reaching choices.” 

Morty chewed on his lip. 

“So, um, this might sound dumb but, can we just kill him?”

Rick smiled at him, all yellowed teeth and narrowed eyes.

“That's my boy.”

Morty blushed despite himself.


	7. MK Ultra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! 
> 
> Hope you're enjoying the show so far. So, this chapter is where the gore warning kicks in. The moment isn't until the very end, and it is also the subject of our first Big Bang illustration! (NSFW)
> 
> To be honest, I think it's all pretty mild in how it's handled, words and images. The art is effing lovely, that's for sure. I dunno. If ya'll think I need a more substantial warning let me know

Covert infiltration was never exactly a fun gig, consisting of large amounts of waiting peppered with sporadic pants-shitting bursts of movement, all laid over with the constant tension of trying to remain undiscovered. It was even less fun when you were decked out in awkward gear head to toe like some shitty reject from Tron.

Morty knew Rick wouldn't design anything that actively made the job harder for no gain (well, he would if it was funny enough to him, but that didn't seem likely to be the case here). Anyway, it wasn't that the mesh suit was clunky or difficult to move in- all of the technological components were fairly small and in unobstructing locations. But god, was it goofy-looking. The headpiece was even worse, improbably light-weight but looking like a lunatic’s bicycle helmet, all decked out in lumpish bits of metal and wires. But apparently it was the most important part of the getup, designed to hide from the various brainwave and biosignature-detecting systems in the Citadel.

That wouldn't stop Morty from bitching about it a bit. It was practically his sacred right.

“Think you could have designed something- anything more stupid-looking?” he muttered from the corner of his mouth as he gave a meaningful glance towards the stupid deely-bopper thing bobbling from his helmet in the corner of his field of vision. “Little distracting, don't you think?”

“Consider it a- a test on ignoring your peripheral vision,” Rick replied in an undertone from his spot clinging upside down to the ceiling, across the hall. “Now shut up and get ready.”

Morty considered replying “I was born ready” or something of similar quality but decided that was more giddy than cool and merely grinned, fixing his gaze down the empty hallway. Rick knew what he was thinking anyway. Adrenaline stretched its tendrils throughout his limbs, a welcome friend settling in to steady and electrify. His arms felt light around the plasma rifle they cradled, his palms tingling, his breath utterly silent.

There was a noise from up ahead. Morty’s grin stretched a little wider as he took aim.

He fired the gun.

It wasn't easy to fire on what was essentially himself. It was jarring, of course, sickening in some deep, frightened-animal-brain kind of way. But it wasn't especially hard to do, either. Morty had definitely done more emotionally damaging things in his life. He glanced at the corpses of himself and the most he thought was that it was interesting how many more Mortys there were doing security duty than there had been last time he had been to the Citadel.

Luckily they had only had to kill about a dozen or so people so far. A trail of corpses wasn't exactly low key; ideally things would be so perfectly timed there'd be no need for it at all. These things were never perfect, though.

He walked over to where Rick was perched, muttering as he finished tinkering with the ceiling ventilation duct and it swung open silently. “Alright so there's four more levels in this nesting doll of ostentation. Ideally we can bypass two of-”

The floor opened up underneath Morty, and he was falling before he could scream.

It was a long fall though. He had plenty of time to watch bars snap into place across the opening a microsecond before his grandfather crashed into them, cursing loudly. He had plenty of time to hear him yell his name. Plenty of time to shout back, before everything vanished.

 

It really said something about Morty's lifestyle that his first impression upon waking, after momentary confusion, was surprise that he was neither bound nor in some sort of cell. In fact he had his face buried in a truly luxurious carpet, and when he pushed himself up and looked around blearily he saw a handsome if gaudy room, all wood paneling and curtains and statues and deep-colored fabrics. Napoleonic, maybe.

As his brain came fully back online his heart sank. But at least he wasn't surprised, then, by the voice that drawled from behind him.

“You look ridiculous.”

He turned around and saw a very coiffed version himself, sitting behind a sprawling dark-wooded desk, wearing a gray suit and a faint smirk. He was holding a crystal glass with amber liquid in it at a cavalier tilt. The whole picture was pompous to the point of absurdity, Morty thought, and it made his response easy to find.

“So do you.”

The side of the President’s mouth curled up and he raised his eyebrow as if to say “cute”. His eyes stayed coolly flat. Morty considered sticking his tongue out just to push the point further but decided against it.

His rifle was gone, obviously, as were the two smaller guns that had been holstered at his torso, his UV whip, his round of incendiary grenades, and his helmet. Hell, judging by the slight soreness of his forearm the little son of a bitch had even found the darts that were hidden there, one of the few concessions Morty had made to Rick’s body enhancement mania. So killing the Morty was going to be difficult. Plus the fact that he had been allowed to move freely argued it was likely impossible. He let some of the tenseness drain from his body.

“That really took you ages to figure out, didn't it?” the President said wonderingly. “That you can't kill me? Please tell me it's not a surprise that we, more specifically I, knew you were coming before you ever reached the Citadel.”

It wasn't really a surprise _now_ , but obviously he and Rick hadn't known that earlier. Morty scowled and didn't deign to respond.

President Morty smiled at him and took a sip from his glass. “This Gardaxian brandy is really something. Care for some?”

He sighed at Morty’s unimpressed look. “I'm not about to poison you _now_.” _Idiot_ , went unspoken into the pause at the end.

Morty was already done with this stage of whatever this was. He had faced far scarier people than this smug little fuck. Maybe it wasn't the smartest tactic but this wasn't his first rodeo being held hostage and honestly it was hard to muster up the appropriate amount respect for the situation, these days. He wondered how far away Rick was.

“Listen man, can we just, you know, skip to the point of whatever this is? You planning on killing me or just making me listen to you talk, that whole thing...”

“Oh but I thought it would be nice to chat for a bit. You came all this way, it would be rude not to.”

Oh boy, so the full cheesy villain mode, alright. If he wasn't about to be killed he might as well take a load off, so after sighing in mild aggravation Morty plopped into one of the upholstered chairs in front of the desk, smothering a smirk at the way the legs squealed and skidded against the wooden floor. The President gave him another one of those patient, condescending little not-smiles. After a few moments of silence Morty prompted in mockingly lofty tones, “So talk.” _Idiot_ , he added unspokenly in his smirk at the end.

The other Morty’s face stayed unchanged. Those fucking eyes really were creepy.

“Tell me, Morty, why do you think Ricks drag their Mortys around with them everywhere?”

Morty raised a brow, then rolled his eyes. “I think the first excuse I heard was Morty waves. I don't know, because they're lonely, because we’re the only ones that put up with them?”

The President gave him a nod. “I used to think similarly. If that's so, why is it that Mortys put up with them?”

Morty frowned. It didn't take a genius to see where this was going.

“Listen, it's not- if this is some ‘kill your Rick, join the dark side’ pitch, I appreciate what you're going for, except I don't, really, honestly you're like- like the two hundredth person to think that'll work, and it's pretty old by now. Not interested.”

The President clucked his tongue, and took a slow, contemplative sip from the glass, placing it down onto the desk before replying. “I didn't expect anything else, honestly. Most Mortys are far too stupid or brainwashed to dare leaving their master. Still, I had hoped that perhaps C-137’s Morty would be at least slightly more intelligent.”

“Where’s Rick?”

The President grinned with what seemed like genuine humor and it was no less off-putting than his creepy, cold little smiles. “Oh, I'm sure he's around here somewhere. Why, surprised he hasn't shown up to rescue you?”

Morty said nothing and did his best to deny the prick the satisfaction of seeing him glower. There was something familiar about this Morty and his dead voice. It nagged at the back of his mind.

“The thing that truly staggers me is the commitment to delusion. The faith Mortys have that underneath the abuse and manipulation and disregard there's something ‘real’ there. It facilitates this… idiotic loyalty. When it's perfectly obvious that they're the most disposable thing a Rick has. I think MortyMart had a sale every week, buy one get one Tuesdays.”

“Not every Rick is the same,” Morty muttered a bit tiredly, unsure if what he was feeling was irritation or reluctant pity for this Morty that obviously had gotten the shit end of the stick at some point, as far as Ricks went.

“Oh, you're absolutely right!” The President’s voice was tinged with cruel delight and it ramped up Morty's unease. What the?

“And C-137 is particularly unique, isn't he? But that just makes your position even more precarious. ‘The Rickest Rick’, that's what he calls himself these days, right?”

He continued without waiting for a reply. It was just as well, because Morty was finding it hard to unclench his jaw.

“And let me guess, you’re his ‘Mortiest’ Morty. I imagine it felt pretty good when he let you call yourself that. Maybe he even said it first. But let's think about that for a moment, ‘the _Rickest_ Rick’. The cruelest, most cunning, conniving, merciless Rick. The boldest, the most daring. Creative and quick and powerful.” He tilted his head.

“The Mortiest Morty, on the other hand, well, what would that be like? Let's think. The most… hesitant? Or perhaps the dullest. Slowest. Mindless, hmm, that's a good one. Most fearful, clumsy, inept,...needy? Yes, I think needy is very applicable. And, of course, above all crushingly, disgustingly ordinary.” He paused meditatively, then fixed his eyes on Morty's.

“You see the problem, I assume?” When Morty remained stubbornly silent he sighed. “Maybe not. Well, it might be beyond your understanding but let me assure you, it just doesn't work. The ideal partner to such a Rick would be the farthest thing from a Mortiest Morty. It would almost be cruel if fate had laid it out to be that way.”

Was Morty imagining the emphasis on the word “if”? He thought he was. He must be. He didn't like this. It wasn't even the insults, those he could deal with. He just really didn't like this douche bag.

“You don't know me at all,” he said calmly. Why was he bothering to argue? Just reflex, he supposed. And annoyance at how wrong this fucker was. He knew nothing about him or his Rick.

“But I _do_ know you. Don't you remember me? Hmm, that's a bit disappointing.” The President reached up and covered his eye with his hand, his mouth twitching with humor. “Better?”

Morty stared at him blankly. Then with a click, it made sense. The voice, the eye. “You- you're that Morty with the scarred up Rick, who threw me in that roomful of kidnapped Morties,” he said with accusation.

“That room was where you belonged. Indistinguishable from the rest of the pathetic bunch of you.” A new note of hardness had entered the President’s voice as his eyes bored into Morty. “It was such a disappointment to see C-137 reduced to carting you around. I can't imagine how he coped.”

The way he was talking about Rick. There was an edge of smugness, of familiarity. Superior but bitter. It wasn't just in Morty's head. Danger prickled louder down his spine. As if he could sense weakness, the other Morty leaned forward, smiling, and murmured conspiratorially.

“A Rick like that would have a Morty who matched him, intelligent and dangerous. One that could gaze at the cosmos with equal eyes instead of just blindly stumbling after him like a sheep. And you know what?”

He paused as if he expected Morty to respond and damn it, Morty did, shaking his head distractedly, feeling as though he were transfixed by a snake. Pinned by that lifeless version of his own eyes.

“In the end that Morty would _still_ not be good enough. So tell me, what does that say about your chances?”

His face was more animated now, a snarl marring its composure. Confusion and dread and fear hung from Morty like weights, rooting him unmoving in the chair even as an alarm briefly sounded in the room around them. It couldn't be. He- Rick wouldn't-

“That's my cue to wrap things up, I suppose.”

The President opened a desk drawer as he spoke, moving so nonchalantly Morty didn't even notice what was happening until he heard the soft thut of air and felt the sting against his neck. Slow and stupid, that's what he was, just like the evil rat had said. He felt himself suddenly become even slower, his body going lax in his chair.

The President got up from his chair and walked around the desk to stand in front of him. One leather dress shoe swung up and kicked Morty out of his seat, sending him tumbling onto the floor. The expression has leeched back out of his face, returning to its typical bored blankness. But there was something horribly animated in his tone.

“I’d like to do something for you, Morty. Consider it my blessing. Or maybe a consolation prize, for failing so miserably at killing me.” He swung a leg over Morty and sat on his chest, grabbing a painful fistful of hair. Morty's arms rose in slow motion to weakly bat at him. He felt like he was moving in tar, breath coming in slow heaves as he lay there on the ground. President Morty leaned closer.

“At the very least, it'll help you be a better copy.”

His fist in Morty's hair tightened. Then his other hand came up in a claw, and dove into Morty’s eye.

The pain was indescribable, instant madness biting through his face into his bone, light flashing red-black and setting his brain on fire. Morty screamed high and wild as fingers tore past his eyelids and shoved their way through his eye socket. His whole body rebelled against the sensation as they reached and scraped against the back, limbs spasming uncoordinatedly and stomach roiling. There was an awful _tug_ in his head and he wretched as the the hand yanked back. Agony spiked down his spine in a black crescendo and then there was a jarring cessation of motion and he forced his other eye open and _there it was_. Dear god, there it was, that pulpy mass dripping in the President’s hand was his fucking eye and Morty really was going to vomit and in this state he would probably choke on it and die. He groaned helplessly, working eye slamming shut again.

It hurt. It hurt so much, his whole head felt like had been filled with acid and he couldn't even grit his teeth properly with the damned drug. He wanted to faint, please just let him pass out.

The President said something he didn't even hear and then he was moving, being dragged towards something bright. There was an impact and another flash of pain against the side of his body. Then he was falling through air, weightless. He saw the outside world streaking by him in smears of color. There was a roaring sound in his ears.

He never hit the ground.

 

First Big Bang Illustration, again by the marvelous Sandwich.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/164389502@N02/30649333488/in/dateposted/)


	8. I Belong To You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Warning this time for the dubious consent, lol. It's a bit harsh and unhealthy but hey, that's fanfiction for ya. 
> 
> Also this chapter features the second illustration by the incredible Sandwich! (Again NSFW)
> 
> Thanks again for reading, everyone

Morty's face ached.

There was a hole where his eye should be, cauterized and bandaged more for comfort than requirement but empty, empty, empty. He felt hollowed out inside, too. It was less than three hours after the disastrous mission, and if he was intelligent he would wait to do this. 

No one ever said Morty was intelligent, though. 

“Are you my original Rick?”

Rick jerked slightly with surprise, Morty was faintly gratified to note under the fear and hurt swelling inside him, predictable as a tide. 

“What the hell kind of- of stupid question is that? You've never bothered asking before,” he said accusingly, glancing at Morty with narrowed eyes. 

Morty said nothing, just stared at him and waited. When Rick said nothing further he promoted, “Well?”

Rick sighed loudly, flipped on the autopilot, and turned to face him. Morty’s chest caught in sick anticipation. 

“It doesn't matter.”

Oh God. It really _was_ true, that evil son of a bitch had been telling the truth, oh Jesus. His breath felt stuck in his chest, he was suffocating. 

“Stop it you stupid shit, you're not listening. I'm saying it _doesn't fucking matter_ , it's a fucking- fucking irrelevant question, and if you used your head for a second you'd get that.”

Rick looked like he was getting irritated, sitting scowling his chair like Morty was being ‘boring’ or ‘stupid’, and the sheer audacity of it pushed Morty further into an angry blaze. 

“Of c-course it fucking matters! It matters if you- if you're some fucking _imposter_ , if you've been lying to me this whole fucking time.” Angry tears threatened to rise and he shoved them away. God it hurt, he knew it shouldn't matter but the idea of incontrovertible proof of just how replaceable he was to Rick seared like a burn. 

“W-was _he_ your first Morty? Did you- did you just ditch him one day when you got bored of him? Did you kill my Rick? Who can- I don't fucking know, do I? I don't know anything besides whatever fucking lies you t-tell me, and- and he said-”

Something like understanding flitted across Rick’s face, quickly replaced by a darker sneer. “So you're actually- you're buying whatever bullshit that slimy little fucker said. The one that _ripped out your fucking eye_. That's- that's real logical, Morty, great choice.”

“God why won't you just tell me?! Are you my real Rick? You- you won't say it because you're not.”

“What the hell does that even mean, ‘real’?” Rick all but spit at him. _“I'm_ fucking real, Morty, I always have been, you little fuck. I’m- I'm the Rick that's _here_ , the Rick that just saved your fucking ass. That- you- the Rick that- that puts up with your stupid fucking existential crises when they crop up once every goddamn week, Jesus, Morty.”

Morty’s face crumpled. Rick wasn’t going to say it but the evasion was as good as confirmation, wasn't it? He wasn't anything to Rick. Just the Morty-of-the-Week, or month or year or whatever. He'd never even get to know exactly how replaceable he was. Rick wouldn't tell him, probably because then Morty might not be such a devoted little follower. 

“Listen, you're being dumb right now.”

Morty almost shot back “and I'm not all the time?” but didn't because it was so, so predictable of him. Just like a Morty, and the thought made him sick. Rick nodded anyway, like he knew what Morty was thinking, the bastard. 

“Exactly. You're not. And that's why it fucking pisses me off that you keep not paying attention, that this is still such a- a fucking _issue_ for you. I've done fucking- you know, it's- it's insulting, you just- just use your goddamn brain, alright? _Think_.”

Rick paused to take a swig from his stupid flask, all red-faced and frazzled-looking like this was uncomfortable for _him_ and Morty snapped. He snatched the flask out of Rick’s hand and hurtled it at his face. 

“Ow! What the fuck, you little turd!”

“I am sick and tired of this, R-Rick! I'm sick of you treating me like some- like some fucking retard that doesn't know when they're being bullshitted! It matters! You fucking know him, I- I know you do. And after every- after all I've- you can't be honest- you’ll- you'll never just be fucking real with me, you’d rather die, you-” He was choking on his anger, almost incoherent. _“F-Fuck you, Rick!”_

He lept off his chair, and tackled Rick to the ground. His hands started moving to his grandfather's pants, trying to tear them down almost on autopilot. At the very least Rick would give him this, he'd _make_ the bastard give him this. It was all a farce, he knew, and part of him already cringed at the inevitability of him desperately pounding into a distant Rick, but fuck it. He'd fuck Rick so hard there'd be a piece of his soul left inside afterwards, there'd be no room for doubt. 

“Morty, we’re not doing this,” Rick began authoritatively. Morty punched him in the face, hard, relishing the whiplash as Rick’s head rocked to the side.

“Yes w-we fucking are.”

Rick bared his teeth and pushed up against him, fisting a hand in his shirt and grabbing Morty’s wrist with bruising force. “No we’re not, you little moron. We’re not just fucking it away this time.”

 _“Quit calling me a moron!_ ” Morty shouted, incensed, tearing his wrist away to pull down Rick's pants entirely. Rick let him, but when Morty shifted his weight to begin stripping off his own jeans he moved quick as lightning, flipping Morty over and pinning his arms behind his back as his face smashed painfully into the floor. 

“Stop it,” Rick snarled, low and dangerous. Morty struggled underneath him heedlessly. He hated Rick, absolutely hated this man with every fiber of his being. Rick pulled him roughly to his feet and half marched, half dragged Morty to the mattress in the back, Morty kicking out viciously with his feet but Rick ignoring the blows with clenched teeth. He threw Morty down, literally tearing the shirt from his grandson's back as Morty flailed, panic rising inside him to mingle with the anger. 

“This is what you get, right? This is what you see, what you expect. What you fucking want, even. You- it's like you can't notice anything less subtle than a blow to the head. A- almost remarkable.”

Rick was animated in his anger, a sort of horrible cheer, the only sign of exertion as he pinned Morty face-down on the bed being the way his breath came hard and fast. Morty clenched his jaw, rage and sorrow and helplessness poisoning him down to his very soul. 

“I fucking hate you,” he ground out bitterly.

“I know,” Rick muttered.

And then Rick’s finger was pressing into him, dry and invasive. Morty squirmed with renewed determination to get away, to turn this dynamic back around. He certainly wasn't in the mood to be Rick's bitch. Rick told him to stop and when Morty didn't, he slapped Morty on the side of the head. As Morty gasped in shock, stunned, the finger withdrew and was replaced by two, though at least now they were slick. 

He whimpered, already feeling a well-trained part of himself respond despite the circumstances and hating himself for it. But that was stupid, wasn't it? Just as stupid as Rick always said he was. Apparently if Rick wanted to fuck him he was going to fuck him. And did it really even matter? Was it worth fighting?

As the fingers moved inside him, stretching him with a callous sort of efficiency that sent lightning up his spine and warmth into his belly, Morty made his choice. The same one he always did, ultimately. He gave up.

 

Morty’s breath caught in his throat, and he felt himself be jarred out of the bizarre zen he had been hiding in. Rick was pushing in with a fourth finger and that wasn't necessary, what was he doing? Unease bloomed in him and his body jerked away. Or it tried to, at least, but Rick’s hand was still in between his shoulder blades, pressing him down into the mattress. He swallowed a whimper as the fingers curved and spread inside him, over and over again. It didn't exactly hurt, but it was alarming and new, he could swear he felt wisps of cool air against his insides as Rick continued stretching him with constant movements. 

Rick withdrew and Morty’s legs twitched at the sensations of his hole clenching uncomfortably around nothing, waiting for the feel of Rick’s cock. Then Rick’s hand was back, slickly pressing into him, and Morty swiftly realized something was wrong, this was even more, and Rick wasn't stopping, and he began to struggle with renewed panic as he realized what the insane bastard was trying to do. 

“Stop it, you're fine,” Rick growled, halting the motion and moving his other hand up slightly to press down on the back of Morty's neck. It squeezed threateningly and Morty froze out of instinct. He was too open though, and it was too much pressure already and he knew he would just die if Rick tried it, his insides would come tumbling out of him. 

“I- I can't, Rick. You have to stop, I can't- I can’t do that. Please don't-”

“You can, Morty.” Rick pressed in a tiny bit more for emphasis and Morty let out a sharp cry. “You know how I know?”

Morty said nothing at first, trying to focus on his breathing, on not letting tears escape. Rick twisted his hand, fingers dragging across his insides and he yelped, “B-because you know e- everything, fuck, Rick, stop!”

“No, Morty,” Rick said impatiently. His nails dug into Morty’s neck. “I know you.”

Morty’s eyes squeezed shut as Rick started moving his hand in tiny increments, each inward thrust working him slightly deeper. He heard himself chanting negations until they were just sounds as he felt himself be worked wider and wider. It was too much- he didn't- he couldn't- his thoughts were fragmenting and overwhelmed. He felt like he was drowning in air.

At a certain point he felt a jolt of true pain spark through him and he started to panic again and Rick was barking at him to “push down, goddammit” and he knew Rick was going to hurt him but there was nothing else he could do but obey. Then there was pressing all around his rim and he was being stretched impossibly wide and it still hurt, pushing down be damned. Morty clenched his teeth, and just when he sucked in a breath to say something in panic, he felt Rick's knuckles slip past. 

The sudden decrease in tension felt like deliverance and Morty's breath whooshed out in a low, fervent groan. He felt Rick slowly slide his hand in the rest of the way, then stop. He was trembling and sweating, nerves firing erratically. The feeling of his asshole clenching and releasing against Rick’s wrist was unnerving, frightening and electrifying all at once. 

He squirmed at the sensation of Rick's hand slowly turning itself into a fist. For several moments Rick did nothing while Morty tried to calm himself back down from the edge, tried to take in even lungfuls of air and lessen the trembling in his limbs. The hand at his neck squeezed one more time and it was almost reassuring, and then Rick started moving. 

He shifted inwards. Morty’s spine arched and his feet kicked mindlessly at the immense pressure, at the jolt through his body as his prostate was pressed against. Despite his efforts of control he was panting raggedly, fists clenching into the foam of the mattress as best they could. It would have been far, far too much sensation on an ordinary day, nonetheless one where he already felt flayed down to his soul. His mind was whirling. 

“Morty.”

Rick’s voice cut into his thoughts. Morty felt too off-balance to talk and Rick didn't wait for him to, he just prised one of Morty's hands from the mattress and moved it towards his stomach.

“Look.”

He pressed Morty's hand down below his belly button, and Morty sucked in a shuddering gasp. He could _feel_ it under his palm. His eyes flickered downwards and god help him he thought he could see it, too. 

Rick’s fist started to slide backwards again and the gasp ended on a keen. It was inside and outside him at the same time, moving through him. His eyes wanted to roll back. Rick’s fist was actually moving _inside_ him. It shouldn't have seemed so mind-blowing, considering all the things that he had experienced in his short life. But it was. 

“Does this feel ‘real’ to you? Does it feel like a trick, like a- like a stranger's hand inside you?”

Morty’s brow furrowed, though Rick couldn't see it. The assuredness in the tone rankled even if he thought he understood Rick’s point. Rick pushed forward again, a bit faster this time and Morty's face slackened as another involuntary gasp exited him. Oh god, it felt good, though. And Rick’s hand pressing against his own against his stomach felt good too. And every time Morty felt Rick’s fist moving under his hand, through his skin, it sent a dizzying pulse up his spine straight into his brain. Rick began rocking his fist steadily back and forth, the motions short but amplifying immensely along his fried nerves. Morty tried not to buck. 

“Tell me, Morty,” he insisted. “What does it feel like.”

“It's- its real, you're real,” Morty babbled, unsure what precisely Rick wanted. “Fuck it feels- it feels good, Rick, b-but it's a lot. It's a lot, a lot, fuck it's a lot-”

His voice trailed off into a cracked cry as Rick deliberately rubbed his knuckles into him and splintered his thoughts back into disorder. Morty felt himself flush head to toe, not so far gone as to be entirely free from shame at how undone he had become during this new intense game of distraction. Rick released Morty’s hand and moved to trail his bony fingers down his spine. The ticklish shivers the motions produced worked in counterpoint to the heavy sensation of the hand inside him, annoying and balancing and incendiary all at once as they distracted him but also caused him to clench convulsively on Rick’s wrist, sending further spasms through him. 

He heard his grandfather hum with satisfaction behind him and shuddered again. And then the hand was moving slightly harder, pushing and shifting and re-arranging his insides, carving a place inside him and he was losing traction in his mind and body both. He could feel everything, it seemed, his skin stretched around Rick, his sweating, shaking body, every inch of him sensitive and singing in the air. He could feel his orgasm building, a bomb in his gut that Rick was prodding forward relentlessly. All it would take was one stray touch to his cock, surely, as it hung in the air frustrated and aching. But he couldn't muster the coordination to move his hands from where they were pressing against his forehead. He whined, pushed beyond shame, pushed nearly out of his mind. 

Then one light, possibly accidental (hah, who was he kidding) bit of extra stimulation came to him as he felt his grandfather's free hand glide back around, the side of it brushing against his cock. That was all it took, and maybe in another place, another lifetime, Morty would be ashamed or discomfited by the way he convulsed and cried out with that tiny touch, dick pulsing his release onto the mattress as his ass tried to milk his grandfather’s hand. But in that moment all he felt was searing, mindless relief, like he had passed a trial by fire. He felt grateful. 

Morty panted into the pillow, aftershocks jolting through him as Rick slowly, carefully uncurled his hand and withdrew it. He felt sweaty and achy and wrung out. Rick was a manipulative dickhole to pull a stunt like this, and somewhere inside himself Morty was still pissed, but he knew better than to think there was any point in arguing further right now and besides he was beyond tired. At least the sex had been pretty damned good. Intense and kind of selfish, but good. He shifted and sighed heavily, gathering the strength to get moving from his position.

Suddenly something was pushing into him again, _Rick_ was pushing into him, and Morty might die. 

“Oh, God!” Morty choked hoarsely. “S-Stop!”

“No.”

Morty moaned, eyes squeezed shut around the tears threatening to come. He felt raw and too open and very, very sensitive, and Rick was already moving his dick in steady, deep thrusts, and the stimulation was far too much, the stinging soreness blending and making him lightheaded. He just wanted to stop. He was so tired, he had done what Rick wanted and while it hadn't exactly been unpleasant it had been exhausting. 

But that wasn't the point, was it? That was never the point, after all, where he and Rick were concerned. He shouldn't be at all surprised, he reflected, bitterness swelling up again. 

“You don't know me, Morty. You never have. And it's not ‘cuz- ‘cuz I'm some fucking doppelgänger. It's because you've never fucking paid enough attention, not once in your life.”

Morty wasn't even surprised by the mind-reading, though the vehement tone punctuating Rick's thrusts was a bit unexpected. He hadn't paid attention, he really hadn't. Rick was callous. Rick wanted what he wanted, when he wanted it. Rick would take absolutely everything from him for no other reason than that he could. Rick was every terrible thing Morty had ever tried to pretend he might not be, he would use and abuse Morty and drain him dry. That was the lesson here.

Morty gritted his teeth as Rick slammed his hips into him. He was going so much deeper than normally, it seemed in Morty's sensitized state, Rick's cock prodding down to the tender core of him. Pulses were being sent into his slowly-hardening cock with every thrust and it wasn't a shock, really, that he was responding. He might not know Rick, after all, but Rick knew him, knew how to manipulate Morty's body and mind however he damned-well pleased. Knew him down to his hollow bones and filled them up. 

Morty flinched as the head of Rick's cock skidded past his prostate, twitching and now almost fully hard again. It still felt almost as painful as it did good. It just felt too much, he really couldn't take it, his body was shaking and on the verge of collapse and he felt like his mind surely wasn't far behind it. But it didn't matter to Rick. It shouldn't matter to Morty. He should just accept it, mind and body. It wouldn't take much longer for him to come, for both of them to come, and then even Rick surely wouldn't expect more from him. 

But maybe Rick would. He very well might. Maybe he'd keep going until Morty passed out, until he was broken and bloody and useless. And if that happened Morty would take it. That was what he was supposed to learn here, and really, he should have long before.

Insane, cruel asshole or not, Rick knew him better than anyone else ever would. And Morty may well be nothing more to Rick than a possession, a replaceable toy, but in the here and now at least he _was_ Rick’s. He knew where he was. He should be grateful. He was, even. 

His thighs were shaking horrendously, collapse imminent. Suddenly Rick pulled out and clamped one hand on his hip and wrapped the other around his chest, hauling him upwards and backwards to settle on Rick’s lap, cock sliding back into Morty in a smooth motion. Morty just moaned, eyes mostly closed and almost insensate. He felt like he was floating and free. Like he had accepted his impending demise, disconnected from the storm inside him. At peace.

“Morty.”

Rick’s voice was a murmur in his ear, gravelly and barely cutting through the haze in his mind. 

“Morty listen to me. Just- just this once, kiddo.”

Morty felt the warm hand supporting his chest move and pinch his nipple hard. He made a weak noise in response. He didn't want to listen. He wanted to float.

Rick’s breath huffed against his neck and Morty shivered. Then he pressed himself fully against Morty’s back and Morty squirmed faintly at the extra sensation against his skin, prickling and close and tugging him further away from that quiet place. 

“Morty,”

It was a guttural, almost tangible sound, and it seemed like he drew Morty's name out in a sigh that lasted forever, or maybe that was just Morty's brain. He blinked slowly. 

“I belong... I belong to you alone.”

Morty’s eyes widened as the rasping words registered, shimmering on the air for a hazy infinity before plummeting from his ear straight to his diaphragm, pushing all his air out in a shocked wheeze. He drew in a choked breath.

His next exhalation was a sob.

Rick didn't stop moving, even when the tears started and Morty began crying in earnest. He didn't move away, either, driving into Morty while curled over him, almost enveloping him. Morty let himself be held up, unable to move or think or hardly breathe around the pain in his chest.

Rick began thrusting in short, direct jabs, faster and harder. Morty’s head was exploding, he wasn't getting enough air. Maybe he would finally black out. He didn't want to, pain and aches and anger and all feeling impossibly distant. He didn't want to move forward, didn't want anything else to ever happen. 

His impending orgasm felt almost obscene and he wailed when it hit him, rattling his body in spasms and quakes that would have surely torn him apart except for the fact that Rick was practically bear-hugging him. Finally, gasping, his muscles went limp, and he went to open his eyes, only to pause confusedly at the fact that they were already open. He blinked several times, trying to clear the blackness from his vision. His face and torso were wet. Behind him, Rick’s chest was bellowing in and out, pressing against him. 

“Rick,” he muttered, slumping back against the man. 

He felt something lightly brush against his hair and limbs tighten around his chest, and then nothing.

Second artwork, isn't is fucking amazing? NSFW! [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/164389502@N02/44519097541/in/dateposted/)


	9. Exogenesis Symphony Pt. 1

There was a feeling to certain mornings in Morty's life, the ones where he was waking up after particularly cataclysmic events the day before. A dazedness combined with grim determination, like stepping out of a shelter the morning after a hurricane to find the world stripped bare, waiting to be reconfigured back into something understandable and workable. 

The morning after he and Rick had abandoned Earth had, oddly enough, not counted as one of those mornings. But this morning did. 

Morty woke up alone with an aching body and head, and an uncertain heart. The fact that he was missing a goddamn eye hit him with a dull pang. It didn't really matter, of course. Rick would undoubtedly grow or build him a new, probably better one once he had the time and resources. But still, it sucked ass and how it had happened made Morty feel violated and in the meantime his depth perception was utter shit. 

But forget the eye, what about Rick? 

Morty considered the question for a moment and felt the echoes of all the emotions of the day before. Fear and hurt and rage and despair. Deep acidic suspicion. And yet, well, it seemed a bit different in the light of day. Post-hurricane. The way Rick had sounded at the end… it didn't necessarily mean what Morty wanted it to mean. He didn't really dare believe it. 

Morty shivered and lingered for a bit longer on the mattress, indulging the circular thoughts. Then he made himself get up. 

Seeing his own uncertainty reflected twofold in his grandfather's face as he greeted Morty was like a slap. Something giddy and wild (triumph? Or maybe elation, was this elation?) soared in his chest, making him feel like he was expanding. Morty couldn't even say what exactly made it feel so momentous, just that Rick, strong, powerful, king of bastards Rick, was looking at him with genuine fucking wariness and it felt fucking watershed. 

If something like this had happened earlier Morty wouldn't have been able to prevent a smirk from overtaking his face, which would probably have ruined the entire moment. But right now it wasn't even a challenge to control himself. Maybe it was because it didn't feel like a gift, like some lucky windfall. This look had been earned. As it was he blinked and let himself bask in the sensation for a second before getting into his seat.

“I was wrong.”

Morty's head snapped around to stare at Rick’s lined face. Would this morning’s wonders never cease?

“Oh?”

“It's- it's not an algorithm. Or not just that. Seems the little turd has been making deals with the big boys. Got himself a precog mind reader. It can do at least three to five iterations. More, depending on how stupid the target mind is.”

“A what? I thought- isn't that impossible?” Morty asked, thoroughly distracted by the alarming news. True predictive mind reading was supposed to be a metaphysical impossibility, the way Rick had always explained it. Rick grimaced and scratched his head. 

“Yeahhh, well, it- it is unless you cheat, Morty. Buy, borrow, beg or steal from some of the more powerloaded extratemporal entities. No one usually tries to because one- those guys are total dickwads and getting them to even listen to you is next to impossible. Plus, it's stupid. Classic genie dilemma- the ones willing to listen probably have some fucked up motivation that's gonna ruin all your shit anyway. And- and it just breaks the bro code, pulling a move like that. Assuming the demigods don't up and destroy everything and it all actually works to plan, it ruins the fun for every Rick. Which is why no sane Rick has ever tried.”

“But this Morty is insane and hates everyone, so he's willing to do it,” Morty finished. It was odd thinking about President Morty. Uncomfortable but not nearly as painful as Morty would have thought. Like he had been given novocaine.

“Pretty much. Anyway it's- they knew we were coming. I don't- I should have realized earlier.” Rick looked like he had swallowed a lemon, fingers fidgeting on the dashboard. It looked amazingly similar to guilt.

Morty chewed on his thoughts, pushing aside the small potential miracle to focus on the bigger looming disaster. “So what now?”

Rick raised his brow. “Well, it's not the sort of thing Ricks are gonna stand for, once word gets out. Someone will try to take it down.” 

It sounded like an offered way out, like ‘someone but not necessarily us’. The thought made something glow quietly inside Morty, adding to the strange sense of sea change that he was still mostly trying to ignore. There was business to take care of first. “Kinda challenging to plan a resistance to a mind reader,” he mused, meeting Rick’s eye. 

“Challenging, but- but not impossible,” Rick replied, a smirk playing at the edge of his mouth. 

“Good.”

 

The solution involved another hasty trip to V-904 to acquire tech that somehow would be able to shield them. When Morty foolishly asked how the Rick would possibly have such a thing he was informed that apparently one of V-904’s main sources of information was regular quiet deals with extratemporal demigods of his own, kept appeased by regular “donations”. The way Rick looked at Morty as he said that made Morty feel small and sick from the implications. 

Fucking Ricks, man. 

He didn't ask what it cost Rick to come back with the improbable sackful of equipment. Honestly, he didn't even really care. All that mattered was that Rick did come back. 

And then everything happened astonishingly fast. Rick put together a pair of even bigger, more stupid-looking helmets than last time in a matter of hours. They ate. They slept, Rick tugging Morty closer to deliberately sleep cuddled against him like that wasn't practically unheard of, and Morty feeling caught between reeling surprise and boneless satisfaction. 

The next morning they were traveling back to the Citadel. 

This time they made it to the President’s quarters apparently undetected. Morty may have looked like a C-class movie extra in his gear, but he still felt satisfyingly powerful as he stood at the end of the sleeping Morty’s bed, Rick standing at his shoulder. 

He knew it was dumb, a risk, but he couldn't resist firing just inches to the left of the President’s head. Those eyes flew open, sleep and confusion for once making them look almost human. They landed on Morty and widened.

The next shot went directly in between them.


	10. Exogenesis Symphony Pt. 2

Morty shouldn't have been surprised that it felt a little anticlimactic. These things tended to, he had learned over the years. What made a final boss a final boss was all the shit you had to go through to get to him. Actually killing him was more a finished shitty job than an exciting reward by that time.

He stared down at the corpse a little longer than he did most, figuring he was allowed that human weakness. Rick started to walk out of the bedroom, as per their plan to locate and destroy the “bullshit cheater device” and suddenly Morty couldn't let him leave yet. 

“Rick.”

Rick halted and looked at him.

“Did you know him?”

Goddammit, Morty was allowed this human weakness, too. He _was_. He waited, locking eyes with his grandfather. 

He didn't wait long. 

“Yeah, Morty, I knew him,” Rick said after a quiet, resigned huff. He glanced at the bed, then back at Morty. “But he was never mine.”

Morty’s brows furrowed for a few moments longer, then cleared. “Alright.”

Rick’s lips twitched in a ghost of a smile, then he turned away and began to leave. 

“Wait.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Morty, what?? We-we got shit to do here, you know,” Rick burst out exasperatedly, spinning around again. “I'll write you a whole fucking memoir of- of my entire goddamn life history later if we can just get a fucking move on, here.” 

Morty couldn't help but smirk broadly. “No, I was just wondering if you thought the- if there might be like, one of those public broadcast systems here. That whole mandatory-viewing-on-every-screen, dictator ramble kind set up? But also, yeah that- that memoir would be great, definitely get on that.”

Rick cocked his eyebrow at him, ignoring that last statement, then strode out and stuck his head around the doorframe. He ushered Morty over. 

“Yeah that looks to be the exact kind of cheesy bullshit you mean,” he said, pointing at a desk with a microphone and a camera attached to its sleek computer. It was stationed strategically with a very gorgeous fireplace and mantle behind it. “Like a glorified, delusionally narcissistic vlogger. So, like a vlogger, I guess. Got a speech prepared?”

“Uh, not exactly, but, I dunno it- it kinda feels like I should? Like maybe I owe it to them. And, like, why the hell did this even happen in the first place?”

Rick stopped his snickering and rolled his eyes. “It happened because people don't move to the Citadel to thrive, they move there to die- to give up. Sheer apathy, Morty. That and self-destructiveness. But fine, fine,” he said, waving his hands permissively. “Do whatever ya gotta do, _King Morty_.”

Morty frowned. “I'm not interested in becoming-”

“No fucking shit you're not, because you're not a complete tool and plus you know _my_ ass is already chaffing from being here as long as we have,” Rick snarked mildly, apparently over and done with the whole subject. “Give your fucking Gettysburg address, just don't take too long ‘cuz when I get back I'm outta here.”

And with that he hustled out of the quarters. 

Morty eyed the desk and it's equipment, then walked around to sit in the leather chair behind it. He gripped the armrests. It felt… kind of creepy, sitting in the dead President’s chair. He felt his awareness of his bandaged eye socket heighten and he shifted uncomfortably.

Then he made himself stop. He was nothing like that Morty and he didn't want or need to be. There were similarities, but that wasn't equivalent to being the _same_. That was the whole point. He took a deep breath and switched on the laptop. It took him a few minutes, but it fortunately wasn't too complicated to figure out how to get everything else going. Finally, the blinking red light at the bottom of the monitor displaying his own pale face seemed to indicate he was ready to go. 

Shit, here went nothing. 

“Hey, hi, um, everyone. I- well first off I guess I should tell you I just killed your President Morty. I- I did it because he was doing a bunch of shit that was fucking up my life personally. And I don't live on the Citadel, but, just an outsider’s perspective- he really kind of seemed like a dick. Actually just terrible, um, a dictator, honestly. So it's easy for me to feel like you guys are probably better off?”

He paused and cleared his throat. Holy fuck he sounded like an idiot. A helpless, hapless shrug tried to express itself and he hastily restrained it. 

“But I… I guess I don't really know that. I figure a lot of you guys probably hated him, but, um, some of you probably didn't. You, I don't know, liked the changes he's made.” 

It occurred to Morty he actually knew very little of what President Morty had done besides develop mind reading devices to fuck with people and order random other people killed. He redirected awkwardly. 

“Anyway so, if that's you, sorry. But um, I just want to point out that giving unilateral c-control to one person probably isn't the best idea for a society like this. Like I- I barely ever come here and even I know one of the fundamentals of this place is the Ricks vs Mortys thing. It's- it’s in our nature.” 

He gave a half-laugh at his own weak attempt to inject some humor. Get to the point, Morty, Jesus. His palms were sweaty, he was regretting this heavily, it was like social studies class all over again. He didn't actually give his speech then, though, Rick had kept him from school the day they were being given. He could have used the practice.

“So- so if the government is controlled by one person or side it's always gonna be some unfair shit, you know? So, uh, maybe try having two equal leaders? Vote for one Rick and one Morty? Or maybe like... a council of an equal number of both? I don't know, guys, it’s- it just seems like common sense. Like sure, it'll be slower, but it's gotta be worth it, having a fairer society to live in, right? Like, shit as it is now sucks-”

“Okay MLK, your time’s up, gotta go.” Rick came bursting back into the room and dragged him out of the chair by his arm. 

“Shit- Jesus Rick, just- just hold on a goddamn second-”

“No can do gotta go, Morty.”

He ignored Morty’s squawks and tugged him clear of the furniture, then shot his portal gun, dragging them through it and back into the ship. In the split second before it closed up behind Morty he heard a god-awful sound from the other side of it, and a bright flash of heat that was cut off instantly as the green circle winked out of existence. 

“Holy _shit_ , what- what the hell was that?! Was that a fucking neutrino bomb??”

Rick shrugged. “Eh, kinda light for that, maybe a baby one. Some chucklefuck set it hurtling towards the palace halfway through your speech.”

“What the- _why_?” The hurt in Morty’s voice sounded childish but he couldn't help it. He didn't think he’d been doing _that_ bad. 

“Why not? Because he wanted to and he could. Like I said, Morty, buncha destructive sad sacks in there. Practically animals. Waaaaaaay toxic.” Rick shook his head and fished out his flask, and took a deep pull from it. 

Morty's shoulders slumped. “Do you think there's any chance they'll take my advice?”

“Absolutely not,” Rick replied breezily, then did a double take at the look on Morty's face and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Aww, c’mon, kiddo, listen, don't- don't stress about it. Let them figure their own shit out or not. We did what we came for. What does it matter?”

Morty blinked and retooled his expression into something more appropriately unfazed as he thought about it. He couldn't even say why he cared, only that he wished it felt like he had done something more substantial. It would have been _nice_ if all this had ended up helping the Citadel at large. Given it all more meaning, maybe. A better narrative. 

He eyed Rick speculatively. 

But that was stupid. Things had meaning when you decided they did. Importance was in the eye of the beholder. He let out a silent breath, then said decisively,

“It doesn't.”


	11. Exogenesis Symphony Pt. 3

Empty space had a zen quality to it. It was the calm between storms, the relatively safe recharging zone between adventures and mayhem. It was only during the very first days of hanging out with Rick that Morty had viewed it as a dull waiting room; by around life-threatening outing number three he had come to appreciate and cherish the mellowness.

Except, maybe he was regressing. Because by day three post-assassination he felt like a fourteen-year-old again: restless, anxious, and kind of cranky. Fed up with all the nothing. It didn't make much logical sense. He and Rick had traveled in the ship for much longer on previous occasions. And besides, he should be elated- this was the beginning of the rest of his life- no, of their life, together. It was just about everything he had barely dared to dream of. The start had been rocky, sure, but they had finally made it. 

Here they were. 

Maybe that was it. Before, empty space had been a limited resource. Once the time cap was removed, once it became all there was, all of a sudden it felt a lot more, well… empty. 

Where the hell were they even going, anyway? Was Rick just flying in circles? Maybe he had no idea what to do now, either. He could just be biding time until he came up with a plan, or Morty came up with a plan (it was possible). Maybe he was regretting it all. 

Morty shoved that last thought away. It was useless. And neither of them really deserved it. (Arguably, but that was the truth Morty had decided he was trying on for size now). He hazarded a glance at his grandfather, who was contentedly steering the ship with one hand and casually drinking with the other. Cute, familiar shit, for Rick. 

Somehow it set Morty’s teeth even further on edge. But why? What was wrong with him? Scratch that, you know what, what the hell were they actually doing? 

“Hey Rick.” He tried hard to keep the edge out of his voice. “What- um, where are we going now?”

Rick glanced over with a confused look. “Nowhere, Morty. That's kinda the whole point.”

“What, so we just- we just live in the ship forever? That's it? That's- that's the plan, just- this??” He gestured out the window at the nothingness pinpricked by distant stars. 

Well, he had utterly failed at keeping his tone calm. Fuck. 

Rick’s face shut down into something unreadable and he stared at Morty for a few seconds, piloting completely ignored and forgotten as was his annoying habit. 

Then he smiled and Morty stared at him because it was a weirdly soft look. Thankfully it only lasted a second. “Nope, that's not the plan, kiddo. Just hold onto your tits a bit longer, alright?”

Rick spent a couple of seconds calibrating the portal gun, then shot it and a green circle yawned open in front of the nose of the ship. They dove through. 

They came out in more empty space. Morty did his best to sit down on his restless moodiness. It was almost the end of empty space time. Rick had a plan, it would all be fine. 

But when a blue-green, instantly recognizable ball swam into view he lost control again. 

“Rick,” he snapped out in a sudden rush of pure anxiety, now convinced the earlier weird look had been a ‘it's time to put down Old Yeller’ sort of look. “W-what the hell is this? What are we doing here? Why the fuck-”

“Just trust me, Morty,” Rick replied without looking at him at all. 

Morty tried. God help him, he really, really did. He remembered his new conviction to not assume the worst and he tried to keep calm and not demand answers, sweating bullets the whole time they descended through the atmosphere.

But when they landed in front of his house, _their_ house, fucking _Beth’s house_ , he broke again. He grabbed his grandfather by the arm and then he had to demand answers, the fear was too great. 

“Rick! What the hell are we d-doing here?! What- w-why- you- you can't leave me! You're not- you can't leave me here, please don't leave- I can't- I don't- I-”

His eyes were so wide they had practically overtaken his face, panic throttling him to his bones. Distantly he registered that wow, apparently when it came down to it he had absolutely no compunctions about abject begging in this scenario. That was something. 

Rick winced and tried to prise Morty’s arm off of him. 

“Jesus, fucking grip like a- like a baby koala,” he grumbled, then gave up trying. “Morty, stop. I'm not leaving you. I'm staying too, you fucking basketcase.”

What? Why?

“What?” Morty demanded. “Why? Why would w-we stay _here_?” He glanced out the window at the familiar suburb like it was a toxic waste dump. It might as well be. 

Rick sighed and scrubbed his hand down his face. “Because it's- Listen. Being a space vagabond can be fun, sometimes, but mostly it- space is empty. Endless and real fucking empty, Morty. It fucks you up. It fucked me up and I'm a stone-cold badass. And I just don't really feel like watching you crack to pieces after the years of effort spent keeping your fragile egg ass together. So we’re going home. Or well, close enough to it.”

Morty gaped at him, utterly gobsmacked. He was touched by the tone but less sold on the actual idea. A new dimension? Again? If he was honest with himself it wasn't that he truly never wanted to have a home again. But- but _space_ , a part of him said in weak confusion. Space and freedom and Rick and Morty together forever and not having to worry. 

That last thought hit him like a truck. 

“But what about Beth?” he spluttered. “Rick, I- I can't do this again. I can't do the whole sneaking around, hiding shit, I’ll- I'll lose it. I can't go back-”

Rick got out of the ship halfway through his sentence. Morty growled in anger and reluctantly scrambled out after him. 

“Rick are you hearing me?? I can't do that again. I won't, I’ll absolutely go insane- I’ll flip out and be the one trying to murder everyo-”

His jaw closed shut with a snap as this dimension’s version of his mother opened the door and walked out of the house. 

She strode towards them looking calm and terrifyingly normal. Morty, meanwhile, was debating how to most quickly drag Rick bodily back into the ship. Could he just snatch the portal gun and shoot it beneath their feet? No, that never ended well. 

And then, Rick reached out and took his hand.

Morty's head jerked to stare at him and their joined hands with horror. “What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, trying to remove his hand. 

“Trust me.”

Rick wasn't even looking at him, he was looking at Beth with an odd expectancy in his eyes. Morty worriedly turned his gaze back to her. She still looked normal enough as she walked towards them, but on closer inspection this Beth was a bit different from his old mom. The lines on her face were a bit deeper, the set of her mouth more grim. She was paler. She paused a few feet away. 

“Hey Dad, Morty.” She nodded to both of them, her tone politely friendly. 

“Hey sweetie,” Rick replied easily, rubbing his thumb along the side of Morty's hand in a casual, possessive manner. Morty watched Beth’s eyes go to the motion. She said nothing. 

Oh fucking Christ, what kind of fucked up pro-incest universe or some other crazy bullshit world had they stepped into? Or stolen, more accurately. This poor woman thought they were _her_ pervy/normal father and son. Damn Rick and his ‘not skipping a beat’ bullshit, the fucking psychopath. Morty couldn't do it. 

“We’re not yours,” Morty blurted out. Both Beth and Rick looked at him like he was insane or stupid. It felt cringingly familiar. “We- we’re not _your_ Rick and Morty. I don't- I don't know where yours are.” He glanced at Rick helplessly. He just couldn't live a lie all over again. He didn't want to trick her. He didn't have the strength.

“I know.”

Morty looked back at his mother, who was smiling wryly at him with her arms crossed. “First of all, my Morty had two eyes.”

Rick snickered. Morty resisted the urge to elbow him. 

“Second, my Rick and Morty are dead,” she said somewhat flatly.

“Oh…” Well now he felt like an asshole.

“And no, Morty, this isn't some hooray incest version of Earth.” 

Her voice was dry as a desert as she gestured vaguely at their joined hands with a look of mild distaste but more determination. Or maybe it was resignation. Morty fidgeted with immense discomfort and tried more forcibly to remove his hand from Rick’s grasp. Rick held on tighter. Morty snarled under his breath. 

“But.” Beth raised her eyebrow in the same eternally-hassled expression her father constantly used. “I’ve since realized I’d rather have a father and a son that fuck each other than none at all. Besides, you'll be eighteen in a few months. Damage is already done, honestly.” She let out a short, sharp sigh, glanced over them one more time, then turned around and started walking back into the house. 

“I made meatloaf,” she called over her shoulder. “Not really enough for three but I can throw together a salad and it should be fine.” She left the front door partly open in her wake. 

“Thanks, sweetie!” Rick yelled after her.

Morty was still choking on his spit a little, feeling like he had just been smacked in the face with a fish. Even by his standards this was fucking weird. “Uh, R-Rick?” he warbled. He felt his grandfather's hand give his a small squeeze. 

“Come on, Morty,” Rick said quietly, but he didn't tug Morty into the house. Instead he waited, turning his head to wait for his grandson and for once it was easy for Morty to believed; if he wanted them to leave, they would leave together and Rick wouldn't say another word against it.

Could he do this? This was creepy, wrong, and kind sad. He couldn't tell if it was better or worse than he deserved. Maybe that was reason enough to try it. Maybe it didn't really matter unless he wanted it to. Morty took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. It wasn't enough to calm him so he did it one more time. Then he looked up at Rick’s cold, worn eyes and nodded. 

“Okay.”

Rick gave him a showy little smirk and squeezed his hand one more time. Morty followed him through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is. Fucking phew. Longest single thing I've ever written. I've been thinking about this fic for so long that seeing it finished is pretty odd. There's some aspects of it I'm not quite happy with, but hey, there's always future edits. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought of it- I've lost all objectivity at this point so I'm very curious to know, lol. 
> 
> You all are the very best. I hope you've enjoyed my fic. Now get out there and enjoy the rest of the Big Bang!


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